


For Too Long

by hellhoundsprey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Swap, Codependency, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extremely Dubious Consent, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Possessive Sam, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-23 20:22:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 59,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4890838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving for Stanford eight years ago, Sam turns up on his little brother's doorsteps.</p><p>(Ageswap!au, i.e. Sam is born in '79 and Dean in '83. This story takes off in the hunter universe in 2005.) // <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMYvICifzCk&list=PLRa-8ZSOcdnue0KHQbBjKRSsp3LH2xhrD">Soundtrack.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this story moves in a _very_ gray area when it comes to **consent**. I did choose to not use the tag "rape" because neither of the characters perceives the events in this way. If you are open to codependential manipulation, go ahead. If you are sensitive to dubious consent, watch your step. Stay safe!

There was not much to pack and bring from where Sam comes from. The taxi leaves after the bills passed through its window. In this unknown city, in this unknown street, Sam feels closer to being alive than he has for the past few months. Duffel bag easy on his shoulder, he searches the correct number. As soon as he sees Her, he doesn't need to anymore.

One deep inhale of dusty, moist air and courage, and Sam allows his fingers to slide over the Impala's paint. She hasn't lost one single bit of her beauty since the last time he's seen her. Dean takes care of her really well. It's not like Sam would have expected any different from his little brother - the kid could barely count to ten but knew exactly how to change gears. Sam has to smile at a flash of memory back to tooth fairy lies and Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, lunch and dinner; and always Dean's bright smile, always his smile.

The steps towards the door get harder and harder until he's suddenly reached it. Sam doesn't know what to do except for staring at the doorbell. In his mind, every scenario has passed already; the worst and the best. Most times the worst though, because, if he is honest, that's more likely to happen, isn't it? He braced himself for this moment since the second he decided to leave all those years ago, but not even a lifetime of preparation could make this any easier.

A deep breath, another. He raises his arm, lets it sink again. He fumbles with the seam of his jeans, the straps of his bag. Shakes his head, inhales - rings the bell.

He doesn't move, doesn't take a polite step backwards so Dean _won't_ bump into him when he opens the door. No, he has to stay right here, exactly here where he can listen for movement inside the house, can hear his little brother when he still doesn't know Sam is here, right here on his doorstep, so close. Sam can feel his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, in his teeth.

Heavy steps, more shuffling than anything else. There is no name on neither the mailbox nor above the bell, but these sounds alone assure Sam that this is _his brother_ somewhere inside there. A voice now, talking to itself, cursing. Sam isn't familiar with the bass in it and wonders when it was earned; at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen? In his mind, Dean grew up in every thinkable way, fast or slow, could be a giant like him or still those four feet one on gangly, bowed legs.

There's a curtain hiding both sides of the door from each other and Sam couldn't be any more grateful for it. He pinches his eyes closed, hard, forces whatever there is back into his skull, curls his fingers against his leg and looks straight forward right in time with his brother pulling the door open with an "About time, man" and his eyes not at the right level to meet Sam's.

Sam takes it in then, the stutter in Dean's entire body, the realization that Sam is not whoever he expected; then that something is wrong, that this is something important, without knowing what it is exactly - until his eyes zigzag upwards and then lock with Sam's. He freezes then, eyes neither wide nor squinted, as if too fazed to even react.

Dean blinks, once, twice. Sam looks down at him in silence, doesn't move a muscle, doesn't even breathe. His heart might have stopped and he wouldn't have noticed.

I'm back! - Hi! - Hey Dean. - Dean. - Knock knock; who's there? - I'm so sorry. - Please let me explain. - Dean, please.

No car rushes by and the more busy streets are too far away to hear. No wind blows through the old oaks framing the street. Maybe the world came to a stop. Maybe someone finally convinced it that there is no use in turning and turning and turning.

"... What is it?"

Sam tried everything a thousand times, in different tones and with different expressions; in cold weather, in warm, on a fourth of July, during Christmas Eve, three pm, one am. Every mental scenario ended how Sam knows he deserves it: with a stone of an expression and a rammed-close door in his face. He has nothing to offer.

Dean's knuckles are white over the bulge of the doorknob. The hint of a frown slips over his forehead, right underneath the tight ropes of his control. "Why _now_?"

One hand's width, maybe three, and those used to mean _nothing_ to them - and maybe their bodies remember. Maybe this is everything that lets Sam move, gives him the strength to reach out and pull Dean into his arms, right into his chest where his brother belongs, where Sam needed him and where he knows Dean needed to be. Maybe this is everything that keeps Dean from crushing Sam's nose with his fist, everything that weakens him to the point where he cannot _not_ return the clasp of their bodies, to fit into that space that has always been for him, and he fits, still fits right there.

They hold on to each other for a long moment. Breath is back in their chests, fast and thin, but it's there. Sam's chest is too wide and Dean's hair is too dark. Both of them smell wrong, not like old leather and gunpowder and blood that doesn't wash out.

But they are still them. They are still brothers. Another heart against the side the own one isn't in, a beat for every time the other takes a leap.

When they eventually peel off of each other, their knees feel unable to support them.

"It's good to see you," Sam says. He can't let go of Dean's shoulders, the warmth underneath, skin and flesh and life and _Dean_.

Dean stares at his fingers that span on his brother's chest, the too-rough cotton of too-new t-shirt. After a while, he sniffles, rubs his palms outwards and over Sam's shoulders, as if he was measuring him. Which he is. The last time he leaned into this chest, it belonged to someone entirely different. "Can't believe you grew even more."

The laughter is freeing and the smile that follows overflows with gratitude. "You look good."

For the first time in months, the corners of Dean's mouth don't feel too tired to pick themselves up for as much as a half of a glorious inch. "Fuck," he whispers as he slides his hands off Sam, now takes a step back, makes Sam flinch with it - but rolls his shoulders back, looks his big brother up and down, shakes his head with what could be a breath of laughter.

Dean grabs the doorknob and does the unimaginable.

"C'mon in."

Sam breathes out and steps inside.

It's like a dream, and maybe he _is_ dreaming. Dean's shoulder brushes Sam's arm when he squeezes past him to lead the way to wherever he wants Sam to be. Sam would follow him anywhere.

Sparse lights, chipped wood. The walls have seen better days while the floor misses several planks. On a polished walnut side table with golden fittings, a ceramic bowl holds Baby's keys as well as a wide assortment of others. When they leave the steps behind, a toolbox and what looks like cases for parts of a machine saw or something similarly big sits in a corner together with those missing planks.

The kitchen looks better overall, even if only because the tiles are brand new and an old cupboard, a giant fridge and a ridiculously overflowing table are the single three items in the entire room.

Sam watches Dean retrieve two bottles from the fridge, zeros in on the casual uncapping his little brother executes with a broad silver ring on his right hand. There's a little shake to them that Sam would smile about if he wasn't so clumsy himself about reaching for the outstretched bottle.

They drink their first thirds in silence, Dean with his back against the fridge and Sam in the middle of the room, on display. This is Dean's house. He will make the calls. Sam allows his eyes to wander eventually, finds a garden beyond those windows; a little wild, a little scary. A perfect match to this house. A perfect match to what seems to have become of his little brother.

"Yours?"

"Since May. Yeah."

May. Five months ago. "You did this? The tiles?"

"An' the porch. An' the bathrooms. Yeah."

"Wow," Sam breathes. "You've been busy."

Dean's eyes haven't left him for a second. "Not everybody's born for college, I guess."

Silence. Sam keeps his eyes far away. When loneliness was too heavy on him, he used to search trees for that one shade of green that would bring him home.

"I cannot undo what I did," Sam eventually says. He makes a pause, waits for that explosion, for that punch, that kick; anything. Nothing comes. Sam's exhale vibrates with the violent churn of his insides. "But I am here _now_."

Another silence. The trees bare no refuge for Sam, not under Dean's eyes, so he turns to stand against them.

Dean looks old over his beer, his crossed arms; older than the twenty-two years Sam _knows_ he carries. He knew this would come. He has been haunted by exactly this for too many nights to be shocked, but never enough nights not to wish to be able to turn back time.

"Yeah, you are. Right fuckin' there."

Sam wants to return to that doorstep, into Dean's hair, into those arms around his back. He could spend the rest of his life there, he thinks.

"So what?" Dean's teeth grind. He tries to keep them glued together hard, so hard, but it won't stop squirming inside of him. "You're here, _and so what, Sam_? Now we can hug and smile and throw a fuckin' barbecue? You think you can just, just- turn up on my doorstep an' expect me to- to-"

"I'm not asking anything of you."

"Yeah, an' you better fuckin' not!" A hasty gulp, three. The cold burns his throat in the most disgusting way. Dean pushes it down, down; rubs his eyes, mouth. "Fuck."

Nobody speaks. There is too much to say and too little room, too little patience to even start with the first letter. Dean feels every single one of his muscles contracting and releasing, pumping blood and adrenaline and all those terrible things he keeps inside himself, all those fights and all those tears Sam never was there for.

Sam blinks, lowers his eyes down the tip of his nose. He's always looked so gentle like that, almost ethereal. Dean's saint. Dean's savior. Dean's Judas. "If you want me to leave... I'll understand that."

Dean's nostrils flare wide. It's not fair. It's not fair. "No," he grits eventually.

"... What?"

"I said 'no'; stay!"

His brother looks at him with so much misery, so much love that it's suffocating Dean. Bile and tears rise and he feels like fifteen again, like running and running and not stopping until his socks are bloody from blisters and his lungs sour from battery acid.

"For... for now, at least, Jesus fuck," Dean adds under his breath, cranes his neck to wipe the sweat off of it with his free hand. "You just _came_ here."

He imagines hearing a "thank you" but all he sees are hints of what used to be, of his big brother smiling at him from across the room. It looked easier, back then, when they were kids. When Dean still believed in the good and the brave, when there still was something to fight for, someone to fight with right next to his side. And now, Sam is back, as if this was a dream, every Christmas and birthday wish of all those years ago suddenly come true - and he's so far away as if he still was in Palo Alto.

"That all you got?"

Sam follows Dean's nod towards his bag. "Yeah," he answers.

"All that Stanford craze and you can't even afford a fuckin' suitcase o' somethin'?"

Sam shrugs. "Well, I have a Ph.D. somewhere in there. That _was_ kinda expensive."

"... Shit."

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Really." Sam can't suppress the smile anymore. Dean allows himself to measure the depths of those dimples.

"... _Shit_." He wipes his mouth. "Wow. Just _wow_ , Sammy. Now, you've officially reached the top of Nerd Mountain."

Dean laughs. _He laughs_.

"What can I say. I'm good at that, ain't I."

"You so fuckin' are, dude." Dean closes in on Sam so they can clink bottles, finally. Both of them avoid staring at Sam's left ring finger. "... So. And now?"

Sam takes a greedy sip after only nipping so far. "Hm?"

"You did it, and now? What now?"

His brother's lips part, but nothing comes out. Dean tries to remember how Sam used to look when he thought of a lie, but this is nothing like it. It's less deep, thicker. The truth. "I'm kinda... tryin' to figure that out at the moment."

"... This why you came here?"

"Part of, yeah."

"And the other?"

"You."

They lock eyes. Dean could drown in that never-ending softness, could get lost. It was so easy back then. "Me?" he repeats.

"You," Sam nods, his voice thinner now. "I... I know I'm not... I don't have a right to say this, but..."

Dean knows the words before he hears them and has to close his eyes to endure their hit.

"I missed you, Dean."

He could punch him now, and it would be easy. It would be _fun_. Could scream and flail and send Sam away, break his heart like it had been done to him. Dean could abandon, tear apart - and it would feel _good_. But he doesn't.

When he opens his eyes, the amulet is still there, still where he saw it when he opened the door. Still around the neck of the brother he screamed and cried for for years and years and years and no answer did ever come.

And now he's here. He's here. It's happening, and it's real.

Sammy is back. He came back for him.

For him.

"You shut your damn mouth!" Dean grits and wrestles his arm around that back, buries his face next to the present he once gave, right above Sam's heart. The duffle bag drops to the ground when Sam reaches around him to return the gesture.

Close, closer, they can't let go. It's been so long, too long; as if this was the first gasp of air after a mile-long swim.

Still, it's still them. It is, isn't it?

Dean bites back the tears he knows his brother would never make fun of.

The pizza arrives thirty minutes late; cold. Dean gives the kid a tip anyway, because you don't punish a horribly underpaid teenager who already is on the edge of tears. The brothers wolf the entire thing down over their third beers and a re-run of The Longest Day. On the dusty couch and under the flickering lights of the black and white TV, they feel oddly complete. Sam would never admit that out loud, not in front of Dean.

Noon slowly turns into afternoon. Light gets dimmer and air gets heavier with impending rain.

Still on the couch with the end credits rolling over the screen, Dean flicks a piece of wood from his thigh.

"I could help," Sam offers. "With the house."

Dean snorts. "Pfff. Yeah. Right."

"What? I know how to work a saw."

"No offense, but I don't need nobody muddlin' around with my property."

That look from his little brother says it all. Still as stubborn as ever, huh. Sam nods, sighs. "Alright. Then at least let me... I dunno. Do the dishes? Wash your clothes? I dunno."

Dean's laughter comes easier with the beer. "What's that? Could it be that you're tryin' to bargain yourself into my house o' somethin'?"

"Eventually?"

"Ah-ha." A deep gulp from the bottle. "Don't you. Like." He doesn't look at that ring. "Have, uh. Responsibilities? Work?"

"As I said... I'm currently figuring that one out."

Both drink. "Well, _I_ have work, actually," Dean tells into the neck of his bottle.

Sam turns to face him then, a little sleepy and a little drunk maybe. The guy never had too much of a tolerance. "You do?" he smiles.

Dean nods to himself. The attention feels nice. "Yeah."

"Where?"

"Garage, other side of the town."

"You're. You have a job? As a mechanic?"

"Yup."

"Wow! That's amazing, actually. Great, Dean. Really."

Dean wipes his nose, scratches behind his ear. "Thanks. It's, uh, it's fun. I like it."

A short silence, like a held-in breath. Sam's smile falls from genuine to stretched.

Dean knows the question that will come. He's practiced for it for almost two years now, but he's still nowhere close to having figured out a good response. He nurses his beer and tries to keep his nerves under control.

"And, uh. What did _Dad_ say about that?"

Dean swallows. "He's, uhm." He clears his throat, wipes his mouth.

When nothing comes for a while, Sam's smile fades. "... What happened?"

Dean takes some time to finish his beer, gets up to get another one. Sam lets him; takes the offered bottle with a gentle hand. He keeps his eyes down. His brother has always been shy about being watched in situations like this. Sam knows how far he can go.

Sam forces a smile back under his frown. "Any clue where he is right now? Or how? You got his current number?"

Nothing. Dean slowly rubs the knuckles of his right with the palm of his left hand.

"... Dean...?"

"Two years ago," Dean rasps. "We cremated him, two years ago."

Many scenarios went like this, even before he left for Stanford. Back then, it felt good, the sheer idea of it. Like relief, actually, like a "too good to be true" kind of joke - _a way out_. Maybe Sam knew it would come to this. But now that it's here and real and so clearly visible in the hard line of Dean's jaw, it's like replacing the rancid water running in his system with muriatic acid.

Back in Stanford, it always helped to tell himself that everything he would miss about "before" would be Dean. The hunts, the blood, the pain, Dad - those things were too harsh, too cruel. They drove him away from his family, from his destiny, maybe. Now, the fact of his father's death taunts this certitude, strips it down to what pulls Sam's chest so tight it might bruise.

He thinks of John for the first time in years and puts effort into it like never before. He doesn't have a photograph of him, Sam remembers, not a single one. Behind his eye sockets, there's a hard line of a mouth, fuzzy beard, wide, rough hands. They wrap around Dean's shoulder, dig into his hair - reload a shotgun - inspect the bullet wound in Sam's thigh - fish out another credit card with another name on it - feel over the smooth surface of his wedding ring.

Sam blinks. "... You could have called me."

"No," Dean says. "No, I really couldn't, Sam."

"Yes, you could've. You- you..." Sam exhales, buries his face in his hands.

Eventually, Dean says, "You got out," almost casually, so light the words are untouchable. "You never called. You never showed up. Kinda got the message across that you, uh. That you _wanted_ out. And you got that."

Sam imagines it then, imagines his little brother all by himself, next to Bobby, but no, nobody understands Dean like Sam does. He can see the swollen tissue of his face, the raw red on his knuckles; can hear the grit of those teeth, can hear the shake in that voice. The pyre, the flames, wood, burning flesh - and Dean was all alone.

Next to him on the sofa, Dean's body curls in on itself; head lowering, shoulders drooping. He doesn't cry, doesn't waver, doesn't collapse. But he _sighs_ \- sighs low and long enough to give Sam another glimpse of how hollow he allowed his brother to become. "Took me a helluva time, but I grew to understand that. Respect that. So I let you be. I let you have that."

The waves come crashing and take Sam with them.

"The guestroom's not done yet," Dean mutters into the bathroom's doorframe.

Sam spits toothpaste. "Couch's okay with me."

The closeness is as familiar as if there never had been an interruption to it. When Sam is finished with tucking away his toothbrush and paste into a lonely corner of the mirror cabinet, Dean is still there, leaning and watching.

An edge of a borrowed towel (in a rich, dark brown; nothing like those cheap motel ones) takes a last smudge from Sam's chin. "Is it... really okay with you? That I'm here?"

Dean doesn't move, doesn't pick his eyes off the droplets of water left on the sink. "... We'll see how it goes."

And then, the slit between door and door frame is empty.

"... Night," Sam tells the empty room.

"Night," the corridor answers.

Not being able to sleep is not as torturous here as it was back home. Here, Sam can trace his little brother, find him in every corner. He lets his mind play behind closed eyes.

Dean, sprawling out here with a beer after work. Dean, entertaining a whole crowd of friends with his whole-body effort to cheer for his team in the finals. Dean, buried underneath something young and blond and gorgeous.

Dean, by himself, chugging shot after shot until the bottle is empty. Dean, on the phone, fighting with his bank consultant over his installments. Dean, curled up on himself and still drenched in that smell of fire, unable to move, sleep, eat.

Dean. Dean is everywhere.

At six AM, first sounds from through the roof announce the start of a new day. Sam hears it all, drinks up it all, remains still on the couch. Undressing, shower, dressing, stairs. He tilts his head, watches Dean pass without a sideway glance into the living room.

The kitchen comes alive with water and banging of cutlery. Sam moves quietly and comes to a halt in the doorframe that has no hinges for a door. He touches the even wood, the white, glossy paint. Open kitchen. The worst thing about apartment-like hideouts, actually. The smell of food would get everywhere. Dean always loved that.

The muscles in Dean's back work while he is putting together an arrangement of what could become a sandwich. "Coffee?"

On the stove, a beat-up little pot is steaming and spreading heavenly scent already, waiting for its moment. Sam smiles to himself. Still the same. "I'd love to."

"Just another minute. Mugs're up here."

Sam helps himself from the cabinet where Dean pointed up to. There isn't much in there. Most of it looks like it was either picked up at a flea market during the sixties... or came with the house itself. It reminds Sam of Bobby's.

Jess would have probably squealed in delight and titled it with "so vintage" and "adorable". For their own home, the plates _had_ to have fancy shapes and the cups _had_ to have hand-painted pansies - but as a vacation, she would have loved it here.

Dean shoves into his space to fix the coffee, crams their bodies tight against each other. The elbow doesn't dart out into Sam's ribs but also doesn't avoid them.

Shampoo, body wash, aftershave; Dean.

Suddenly, the coffee is a bare ghost in Sam's reality.

"Mpf, hey. Mind movin' an inch, Bigfoot?"

"Ah, uh, y-yeah." A step backwards, almost a flailing. "Sorry."

Just like Sam remembers, Dean's morning-patience still cannot spare a "thanks"; but it's okay. The coffee pours through a tea strainer and Dean reaches behind himself for Sam's cup, gets a hold of it, fills it.

"Thanks," Sam says over its edge, has a first sip.

"There's some stuff in the fridge if you're hungry." Dean stuffs his finished work aka the big brother of what others would call a club sandwich into some brown paper bag. He neatly folds the opening closed and takes a hefty gulp from his coffee despite its temperature. "I'll be back at around three. You can... I dunno."

"Yeah, I'll just, uh. I'll. Yeah." Sam watches his little brother collecting his stuff, heading for the corridor. "Have a good day," he tells him.

"Don't touch my stuff!" Dean replies over his shoulder.

The front door opens and closes and then Sam is alone.

It takes about ten minutes of slow, savory gulps of coffee to do the one thing Dean doesn't want him to do. But honestly, how is Sam supposed to spend eight hours without touching any of the things in this house? Dean hadn't been too specific. It's his own fault.

Sam showers but doesn't dare to use Dean's products. He brought his own after all and it's not polite to use it without asking first. It is nice enough that Dean didn't kick him out immediately. Sam has no intentions of living off of him. It's not like he couldn't afford to pay for his own expenses - his savings from dissolving their household should get him through life for a handful of months. That is not the problem. The question rather is if Dean will put up with him for said time.

Sam starts with the less private rooms even though no room is really un-private in a household of a single person. In the kitchen, the messy table is the most curiosity-inflicting object. He pulls random objects from the heap and puts most of them down again after a confused frown or a breathy laugh. Doorknobs, broken tools, a pacifier, a million screws and nails, empty envelops, empty bottles. There's a piece of fabric that turns out to be a t-shirt Sam doesn't recognize when he unfolds and holds it out in front of himself. It looks like it's about Dean's size. Sam wonders how many of his clothes stayed in Dean's possessions after his departure, how long he maybe chased the scent of him in them, if he got furious when he realized his own favorite AC/DC shirt had gone missing. The shirt is stuffed back under the mess. A cup is refilled and Sam wanders off to the living room.

There's a bookshelf that Sam has been eyeing ever since he came here, and now he's finally got enough privacy to have a good look at it. He doesn't remember his little brother to exactly be a bookworm, so finding various classics and even romantic novels puzzles Sam completely. The shelf looks brand-new, recently polished to a full, dark brown, and maybe Dean built it himself (Sam wouldn't be surprised at this point). The books are obviously read but well-kept.

Sam pulls out a Jane Austen with a particularly pretty back; golden lettering and all. There's a little dust on the top and, yeah, when Sam flips through the pages, there's this "old book" smell that Dean always rolled his eyes at when Sam mentioned its charm in the hundredth library of the month. Sam has to smile in memory of that, those delightful little moments Dean could get him in those hour-long researches with Dad. He lets the pages flip back in place but keeps the cover lifted in a moment of bathing in that dusty smell mixed with what seems to have become Dean's home's scent.

In tender blue ink, the top left corner says "L. Braeden".

Austen slides back in place with Sam's fingers still lingering on it for a few beats - before they go for the next in line. Its binding's inside is signed just the same, just like the next and the one after that one, too. Another reads "Thought-material for my brave little girl. Love, Mum", another "For my dear Liz who lent this from me too often for it to still be legal. Just keep it, idiot. xoxo Marge".

The next book in line is remarkably roughened up compared to the others, as if it'd been read a solid couple of times in both bathtubs and during a muddy motocross ride. Sam doesn't think about his tongue swirling hard behind his teeth, doesn't notice the tension in his face before it breaks.

It's an edition of "The Little Hobbit". Sam is especially careful with it because it really looks and feels like it is going to crumble to pieces if he is too rough with it. He swallows, braces himself. Somehow he knows and somehow he doesn't; it's like ripping off a band aid. Eventually, he flips the cover open.

"To my nerd in disguise and fulltime hero. Give it a chance just like you gave one to us. I promise you won't be disappointed. Merry Christmas, baby. Lisa."

Sam stares at the words for a long time before putting the book back in place. He takes a breath, tries to get a hold of the things that swirl around in his head right now. When he decides that it's no use, he has another sip of coffee and goes for the drawers.

They're locked, naturally. Even in his own house, Dean feels the need to lock up his stuff. The thought calms Sam, funnily enough; on the road and in between one-week stays and car rides, there never was the time nor place to really hang on to belongings or to keep them safe. They carried what they owned on their bodies, in their duffle bags or their school bags. Sam remembers his little brother dragging along that set of toy soldiers he was madly in love with until he tossed them out of the window of the Impala after a heated argument with Dad. The kid said he was "too old for 'em anyways" but got really teary-eyed and quiet when he softly declined Sam's offer to get him a new set for Christmas. And Sam's diary, of course. Well, more like a notebook with random thoughts; less "dear diary, today Daddy and me dug up a grave" and more "eighth January nineteen-ninety, Raleigh, North Carolina - Dean lost his first milk tooth to a month-old candy bar". He grew tired of filling it eventually. Re-reading what he put down made him mad, made him want to tear the pages out. The journal got discarded at around… yeah, must've been ninety-six. When Dean had turned thirteen. It was not like Sam could have written down any of the things he thought about back then.

It's a nice game to find the keys, actually. It requires putting himself in Dean's position, Dean's mind - where would he hide them? Feels a bit like working a case again and maybe that's just like riding a bike. Once you know how to do it, you don't forget it. It's cheesy and Sam laughs a little but of course that one inconspicuous tile next to the cupboard in the kitchen is loose; not obviously so, but they've both learned from the same man, after all. Once the drawer is open, what really is the trickiest part is remembering how everything looked before he went through it. It's nowhere near polite to go through someone else's stuff, so the least Sam can do is try to keep this a secret between the house and himself. There's letters, papers, more letters; some still in envelops, some even unopened.

Here and now, Sam withdraws his hand. He shouldn't be doing this. These are Dean's documents, very private and filled with commonly delicate information. Yes, he wants to get to know his brother again, but this is too much, too far. If there were only a _few_ letters, maybe that'd be another issue altogether, but this is… It looks… messy? Dean _is_ messy, yeah, in his own strange way, because then again he tiled the kitchen and built these pieces of furniture with extreme precision. But Dean also is dutiful. Sam can't help but scan over a sender or two, notices a M. D. and offices of some sort. It doesn't look like Dean to store important documents this way; messy and locked away. Then again - that's what Sam remembers him to be like from eight whole years ago.

A deep breath, two. Sam ruffles his hair, groans, shoves the drawer back closed, locks it, places the key back behind the tile and the tile neatly on top as if he'd never touched it; then wipes his fingerprints off of it. You never know in this family.

It hurts. It hurts realizing there's someone you've spent most of your life with, someone you've been taking care of and looked after as if you were their parent, someone you could count on at any time - and you don't know _anything_ about them. Sam tries hard not to think back to the easy times when they were practically glued together, big brother and little brother, and maybe if there hadn't been a trunk full of loaded guns behind and a revengeful military-trained father in front of them, they'd just have been another two little boys getting lost in their play of cowboys and Indians. Now, Dean is an adult who has secrets like every other adult does, who takes care of his own businesses, who pays his own bills and fills his own fridge. He doesn't need Sam to pour a bowl with milk and Lucky Charms, doesn't need fairytales to fall asleep at night; can forgive Sam that he left, can look him in the eye after this deepest of betrayals.

A lot can change in eight years. Not everything, maybe, but enough.

Instead of going for the other rooms, Sam resigns to slumping down on the sofa and turning on the TV. He does not really watch the program but allows himself to give in to the pull of memories. It's been a long while since he let that happen and it takes revenge in the form of vivid slumber dreams. The flutter of his own eyelashes hurts and he groans as he hefts himself upright, tries to orientate himself. He fell asleep but feels just as wrecked as before, if not worse. It's two already. He should eat something.

Steak and potatoes with a little left-over gravy make him feel a little better, full and heavy. After washing the dishes, Sam slips his shoes on and takes a few steps out into the garden. The stone tiles here are unsteady and broken; Dean surely will take care of them one day the garden has climbed on top of his priority list. His breath clouds in front of his mouth and he shudders. Moist cold is the worst.

Everything here is still green. Some wild flowers are sown across the grass but they have begun to welt from lack of sun and too much rain. Sam wonders what Dean has planned for this. He imagines this could become something nice; can see the charm that must have befallen his brother, too. It needs time and a lot of heavy work, but there is great potential. If Dean plans on planting certain types of plants, of flowers? Would he be interested in growing his own vegetables? Will he be the one trimming the hedges and trees, all by himself, with a giant chainsaw and even more enthusiasm?

Sam wants to ask him all those questions, and many more. He wants to spend days and nights just listening, just watching his little brother. He wants to know everything, anything Dean is willing to share. He wants to be a part again, a part of this, of Dean. They're adults now. Maybe it can work when they're both adults.


	2. Chapter 2

The shed is just as unspectacular as the cellar. Basically, Dean seems to have spent the last ten months' paychecks on tools and machines. It's a little ridiculous, really, but then again Sam has no experiences with what one needs to practically re-build an entire house. There's a lot of old stuff, too, not only brand-new material, and Sam can imagine his little brother searching flea markets and yard sales for some cheap deals. He's always been like that, always mindful of the limited frame of opportunity their little access to money gave them. He'd always find a way to pinch a penny or two, would always get them out with more than Sam would have expected. It never had been difficult for Sam to be proud of his little brother, really.

With it almost being three AM, Sam decides against continuing his search around the house. The cold is refreshing to his tired eyes so he sits down on the door step and waits for Dean to come home from work. Of course, he gets a bewildered glare from his brother when he parks the Impala in front of the street, of course smiles when Dean exits the car with his arms full of grocery bags. "You're crazy! How long've you been out here?"

"I'm not cold at all," Sam promises.

"Yeah, you're better not!" Dean unlocks the front door, lets himself in while Sam remains outside for a beat longer, just looks over his shoulder to watch his brother struggle with the weight of his shopping goods. "'M not gonna be the one to wipe your nose 'n rub chamomile on your stupid chest!"

Sam smiles. He finally follows, closes the door behind himself, slides the lock back in place. Dean leaves a scent trail of sweat and motor oil and Sam has nothing else to do but to follow it like a damn hound. "You bought so _much_!"

"Wasn't exactly prepared for visitors. 'T was due anyway." Dean stacks can after can into the cupboards, heaves a bag of potatoes into a nearby basket. Two jugs each of orange juice and milk find their way into the fridge as well as two six-packs of beer. "For my tree-huggin' freak of a brother!" Dean swings a net of peaches in Sam's direction who laughs as he catches them. He almost wants to race over the little space between them when Dean breaks into a smile, unwraps another pile of fruit - apple, oranges; then kale, tomatoes.

"You didn't have to," Sam breathes, and it's the truth.

"Nobody's gonna be hungry in _my_ home," Dean announces under a wide smile as he bends down low to store the vegetables. "You're still into that stuff, right? Salads 'n all that chick food? You better be, 'cause I won't be eating this shit."

Sam rolls the peaches in his hands, still smiling. "It's great, really. Thanks."

"Good. You ate?"

"Oh, uh, half an hour ago, yeah - should I have-"

"No, no, uh, it's okay; I ate at work, so no worries, I'm good."

Sam sighs. "Okay."

Dean's eyebrow lifts itself at him. "You either eat those or stop groping 'em."

The peaches are discarded and they sit down for an afternoon coffee. Sam gets all his courage together and starts asking little things about the garden. Dean answers are short and growled over his mail and newspapers, but they are there. Sam nods to himself and Dean's choices (vegetable garden yes, bee friendly flowers because hasn't Sam heard of the bee crisis?, of course he has a chainsaw, what kind of question even _is_ that) and dwells in the warmth of their closeness on the couch, of Dean's smells and his breath and his movements, the way his eyes dart over headings and paragraphs, the way his tongue peeks out between his dry lips to dampen his thumb for easier flipping of the pages. Sam finds himself licking his lips in sympathy and stops himself midway through it.

"So what'd you do all day?" Dean doesn't look up from his papers for this question.

Sam shrugs. "Nothing. Had a shower, ate, slept."

"You're not lookin' too good."

He huffs. "I have a lot of sleep to catch up with."

"Rough time?"

"Rough time."

"Does it, uh." Dean sniffles, flips the page. "Does it have to do with your girl?"

"Girl? Which… Oh." Almost in a reflex, Sam's thumb feels over his ring. He searches for something to add, but there doesn't seem to be anything.

After a while of mutual silence, Dean sighs, rolls his eyes. "That difficult, huh?"

"Yes," Sam mutters.

"Man, you fucked it up that bad? What'd you do? Run over her cat? Fucked her best friend?"

A frown paints itself over Sam's smile, makes it lopsided. The ring slides around on his finger. "Can we, uh... I'd rather not- Not now. Okay? Not now."

Dean gives him a look, shrugs. "Whatever, man."

Another silence.

"She pretty?"

He remembers her bright as day, feels her hair brush through his face, her skin warm and alive under his fingertips. Of course, it lets the frown vanish again. "Yes," he answers. "I've got a, uh, a picture, if you wanna."

"You bet your ugly ass I wanna!" The paper suddenly isn't interesting anymore. Dean scoots closer instantly after discarding it over the armrest of the sofa.

Sam huffs a laugh, goes for the back of his jeans to fish for his wallet. It's a practiced move when he pulls out that photograph, tries not to look at it when he turns it over for his brother to see.

"Fuck _me_ ," Dean breathes.

The picture gets pulled from his fingers, and Sam lets it go. "This is from when we started going out, third semester."

"An' you were together ever since?"

"Ever since," Sam nods. "Married two years later."

An excited laugh, a twinkle in those eyes that makes Sam's smile even softer, even wider. "Man, she's a _babe_! I had no idea you were such a ladies' man!"

"Well, wasn't, but she liked me anyway, I guess."

Sam receives the picture back into his fingers, gets a warm pat and squeeze to his shoulder, that gentle gaze. "That's great, Sammy. I'm happy for you guys. Y'gotta introduce us some time."

Sam's eyes hurt from that pressure, from blinking too often. "I will," he says.

After Dean has taken a shower, he gets busy with the corridor's floor. Sam tries to be of use but is shooed away faster than he'd like to admit. So he watches from afar, studies the new muscle on his little brother and how it changed his way of moving, of getting a hold of and handling objects. Those hands have changed, are not small and soft like Sam always tried to keep them. Now, they're rough from hard labor, the fingertips flat and wide, the nails short and thick. Dean swears for a beat when a plank snaps when it shouldn't have, leaving him with a scratch all over his forearm, but that's that and he goes on like nothing's ever happened. He's never been one to be sensitive with pain, at least as long as there was nobody around to collect sympathy from over it. When Dad wasn't around, Dean'd always come to him, cradling the hurt/bleeding/bruised spot on his little body as if Sam could do anything about it but giving it a good patch-up of ointment or bandage. Sam'd always do his best of course, making up stories to distract his little brother, to make him believe that every wound he'd get would make him more powerful in the end instead of making him weak, that everything has to hurt before it gets really better. Kids believe in things like that.

Until he asks Sam to start peeling potatoes after what could have been hours or only moments according to Sam's sleep-deprived brain, Dean works in complete silence. Sam does as he is told and hears Dean descend up the stairs, how the shower starts running and eventually stops again. Dean walks him through fixing potato gratin while nursing on a beer and making fun of Sam's obvious incompetence in the kitchen. When the thing is finally baking in the oven, he receives a beer of his own and clinks bottles with Dean's second. "Good job," he is praised and feels tingly over the first heavy gulps on his yet again empty stomach.

They eat and Sam finds appetite where he had missed it without really knowing for a long time. In Dean's presence, everything feels better; right, even. Eating makes sense, waiting makes sense. Drinking is fun, talking is fun. In some way, he knew of course that it would be like this; it's _them_ , after all. But actually _living_ it… that's priceless.

They open another, start Star Wars on VHS and it's so grainy it's almost inconceivable, but that doesn't exactly matter. "I shouldn't drink that much," says Dean after a laughing fit over a joke Sam has forgotten again already, says it just as easy and nonchalant as he throws his arm around Sam's shoulders.

The world is coming to a screeching halt here, forces Sam to remember to continue breathing, not to flinch too obviously with how that monster inside him rattles against the bars of its cage. He feels sweat on his skin, some on Dean's, senses the fragility of the gesture, of Dean's certainty that this is a good idea, if this is appropriate; but of course his little brother doesn't ask, wouldn't have to need to ask, would he? It's pulling Sam in, takes him to his knees so so easy that it's shocking to him who thought he'd locked it away safely. But that's all it takes, isn't it? Just Dean. One touch from Dean and it's like the monster had never been put on a leash in the first place. And it used to be so easy, so so easy, and he wants it to be that easy again, so effortless, to just be close like this without having his guts ripped to shreds with guilt and shame and everything Sam shouldn't be able to feel from a simple, innocent touch like that.

Dean's weight starts to lift off of him. "Uh, sorry, I-"

"No, it's okay, it's, uh." Sam shoves back under that arm, feels the heat and warm sweat against himself and drowns his painful moan under another laugh, loud and consuming and he even puts his head on that chest just to make it more ridiculous, as if he was a damsel in need of her shining knight and he bats his eyelashes and both of them have a big happy laugh before Sam ends his performance, slips back into manliness and adultness and they're not damn kids anymore, are they. They're still chuckling and Sam dares to slide his arm over Dean's shoulders in return. He's careful but insistent, leaves enough space for Dean to duck away under him and throw a sneer and say "quit it, faggot" because he's fragile like that when it comes to those things since that trucker in Glendale told him what his lips around that malt beer made him think of.

But Dean doesn't duck away - he stays. It's uncomfortable with their arms like that though, and Dean somehow is the one who gives in to the ache first and withdraws his arm. Instead of breaking the contact, he stays there, right under Sam's arm, and Sam prays to God that his little brother doesn't feel the puddles in his pits like Sam himself does.

They're watching the TV and are not laughing, not even smiling, maybe. Sam feels Dean's head droop towards his chest, almost feels those hairs tickle his cheek, but they're not close enough. He softly plucks at the seam of Dean's sleeve.

"I missed this," he hears.

He closes his eyes, counts to ten, has a deep sip from his bottle. He wants to say "me too" but is too scared that his voice will crack over it.

That night, it is hard to withstand those fantasies, those damn fantasies that try to tell him that everything's gonna be fine, that everything is alright, isn't it?, and that Dean wants it too. It's the worst of all voices and Sam would let the responsible part of his brain be removed in the bat of an eyelash if it would get him rid of it.

They're brothers, very close brothers without a mother and with an absent father, and that's all there is to that ache for physical closeness. At least for Dean. Maybe for Sam, too, but Sam is smarter than to still holding on to that glim of hope that has long lost its shine in the harsh light of reality. No, he knows what he's made of, knows that it's him and him alone who tries to see things here that aren't real, that no sane person would think about, that no sane person would _want_. And he thought it'd be better, after all this time, finally better, easier again. Turns out it isn't.

Again, he barely sleeps, again, he wakes in his own sweat, breathing heavy, clothes a soaked mess on the couch. Sam goes for the bathroom to splash some water on himself, towels himself down as far as it will go and goes back to sleep. Another two awakenings later he is sick of it and stops trying, stares at the ceiling and wonders what Dean is dreaming about, wonders if he enjoyed The Little Hobbit, wonders what his doctor wrote to him about, about how his arm is doing by now, if it hurts, if he wants Sam to make it better. Dean would let Sam lick his wounds until he decided at age ten that it was "gross", that Sam's tongue felt "funny" lapping over his bare skin. Sam didn't argue with that.

Over the next few days, they get a kind of pattern going: Dean comes home, they have coffee, Dean works on the house, they cook, eat, drink, go to bed. Sleeping gets easier in the forenoon with the promise of Dean's return in the back of Sam's head like a lullaby and on Friday evening, he's finally taking out the stack of books he brought. He fans them out in front of him on the coffee table while Dean is sawing through the what must be the millionth plank and is through the first fourth of his first choice when Dean calls him into the kitchen.

Everything is already in the making; water already boiling, onions already glazing. Sam finds an open bottle of whiskey on the counter, an empty glass next to it and a finger's worth in the one in Dean's hand. His brother's hair is still wet from the shower, his too-thin t-shirt stuck in a dark spot to his skin between his shoulder blades where he didn't pay enough attention with the towel.

Sam sneaks closer, gets a hold of his glass and rubs Dean's shoulder with the other one, gets an awake pair of eyes over the pots. "Such a good housewife." He grins it, mocks, but underneath it all he means it, honestly, really means it, and he hopes Dean doesn't know that just as much as he hopes he does.

Dean's eyes go wide before he explodes in scandalized laughter, shoulders Sam's hand off and raises his forefinger at him. "Oh, YOU! You know what - I've changed my mind. You CAN do some work in this house. You're gonna scrub the damn toilets tomorrow."

A dramatic gasp. "NO!" Sam fills his glass.

"Oh yeah, brother. An' do the laundry. And wash my car!"

"I knew there was a catch to this."

"Yeah, and it's called 'my bitchy big brother thinks he's sooo smart'."

"I think he _is_ smart."

"You do?"

"Yeah." He downs the first mouthful, lets it burn, shudders. "Urgh. Just as terrible as I remember it."

"Good ol' Hunter's Helper," Dean quotes, smiles bright and maybe a little tipsy already. His cheeks aren't as flushed usually, at least.

Dean smells good. Warm and Dean and soap and loose tongue, easy laugh. The heat in Sam's stomach spreads into his belly, his chest. He feels good. After what feels like an eternity, he really, honestly feels good. "Thanks for letting me stay," he says over the rim of his glass, nods towards his little brother.

The smile is reciprocated. "Yeah yeah, an' now don't make me regret it an' skin those carrots over there, will ya."

On the sofa, Dean all but throws himself at Sam and it's not easy keeping himself at bay, especially with the booze in his system. Dean talks a lot tonight, drinks heavily and obviously doesn't give a rat's ass about physical boundaries. He shoves his elbow into Sam's ribs, lets their knees knock against each other. They are sitting so close that Dean's heat bleeds into Sam from where their upper thigs are resting against each other, that Sam can smell the pork under all that whiskey, the honey from its crust.

When everything is already a little blurry around the edges from the three thirds of the bottle they took care of, Sam can't protest fast enough to stop Dean from pulling his shirt up to his chin to present the scar he earned three years ago; "not even from a job with Dad, mind ya". "Right _here_ ," Dean hums as if Sam wasn't staring at that exposed skin, the slowly thinning strip of white on the already milky skin, maybe a hand's width above a dusty pink nipple that is not even perky, just sitting there as if there is nothing to get stiff about, as if it was taunting Sam for getting the first serious rushes of blood into all the wrong regions at its sight. "You wanna touch it?"

Sam recoils, squeezes his glass, his thigh. "N-no, uh; that. Wow. A saw?"

"Uh-huh." And Dean takes Sam's hand from his thigh and guides it right against his skin. Every cell of skin on his fingertips melt into that softness, into that forbidden, terrible sensation Sam shouldn't have, shouldn't get, not ever. And still, he fails to withdraw his hand from Dean's soft grip. "Sonofabitch tol' me it woulda be sooo easy to handle." Dean slurs. Dean is drunk. Sam shouldn't take advantage of this. But he is so so weak and Dean's skin is so so smooth. "Bled like fuck, all over the damn floor; shoulda seen his face, Sammy, ha, goddamn!" Dean's chest heaves with his laughter, moves under Sam's fingers, shifts, presses into them, and Sam shoves all right thoughts aside as he quickly reaches lower and gives that stupid soft nipple a good, hard twist.

Dean squeals, slaps Sam's hand away, bellows laughter. "OW!" His shirt is back in place, thank God, but Sam has to take a long, deep sip from his glass to keep himself from staring where Dean rubs the now aching and perfectly hard nub through the cotton of his shirt. "What was THAT for?!"

"Your reflexes suck," Sam decides over what hopefully is a mischievous grin.

"Not fair, man! Ouch!"

Sam waits for a counter attack, but nothing comes. Maybe it's better like this, that Dean just goes on to another topic altogether instead of touching Sam back, because maybe Sam has no idea what would have happened if he had done that.

For the first time in forever, Sam jerks off with his thoughts on his brother and his brother alone. The sensation of his skin under his fingers, of the soft give of his nipple between them is more than enough, really, but like a junkie falling back to old habits, Sam can't leave it with that one thing alone. He manages another orgasm, two, to his all-time favorites woven in with the fresh image of Dean's real, actual grown face now instead of what Sam dreamed it to be like.

It is neither making it better nor worse that Dean is out like a light probably just above him, in his own bed, heavy and hot from the booze and with a drooling, unknowing mouth. He's here, and that's enough. Sam's with him and is allowed to stay, to watch, talk, _be_ \- and that's enough.

Dean works through most of Saturday, leaving Sam with his books and the shame about last night. Maybe the chores had just been a joke, but Sam takes care of them anyway, scrubs extra hard and thoroughly to make up for his mistakes. It's surprisingly easy to look Dean into the eye though, maybe too easy, because Sam _wants_ to feel bad about this. It would only be right to feel bad, disgusting, ashamed. But Dean's eyes are bright and clear and on Sam like they are kids again, hopeful and trusting and Sam can't misuse this trust.

"When I am done with mine, can I read some of your books?" The plan is to get honest access to the information Sam already got to in biased ways, in order to get information he probably is _unable_ to get in biased ways. "It's a great collection. I didn't know you read that much."

Dean doesn't look up from where he pours himself more coffee. "If you want more books, there's a shop in the city. A library, too."

"Okay, but, uh. I mean, they're just lying around here, an' I-"

"I told you I don't like my stuff to be touched, so, no. _No_ , Sam."

Dean and his cup are gone, and only moments later, Sam hears the saw going off again. He huffs, runs his fingers over the back of his book. He repeats to himself that he has enough time, that this is not too much of a disappointment. Eventually, he'll get a hold of that information. When Dean is away again on Monday, the bedroom will be next.

In the afternoon, Dean is too tired to keep on working. He insists that no, they _can_ watch a movie, no problem, he's not _that_ beat, but when Sam returns from a bathroom break, he finds his little brother face-down on the couch.

Together with his book, Sam sits down in front of the couch, his head close to Dean's so that he can hear his soft, even breathing, can feel it brush the back of his neck and his hair. He leaves the movie running, doesn't cover Dean with his bedding that he puts behind the couch during the day. No; Dean is a too light sleeper, has always been. Sam remembers hard nights even before shooting lessons and grade school because their motel was too close to a too-noisy highway, rendering sleeping useless for baby Dean as well as everybody in a five mile radius. It would only get better if Sam climbed into that crib and held the screaming little thing close to his body, cradled and rocked it until it would relax and finally go quiet. Even Dad couldn't do that, and Dad could usually do _everything_. But Dean - only Sam understood Dean.

Hours pass and the DVD keeps on playing in endless repeat. The sun hides behind the horizon and its last rays get eventually swallowed up by nightfall. Sam smiles over the rumbling of Dean's asleep stomach, over the little smacking noises from those lips. Dean stirs but doesn't wake up wholly until Sam's hand sneaks into his loosely curled up fingers. Just like when he was a toddler, he grips those way bigger digits like he never intends to let them go ever again.

"Dee," Sam whispers.

"Mmmmh."

"It's half past six."

"Grmph."

"Should I start cooking?"

"G'nnuh fu'hf up."

"What?"

"Y'gonna fuck it _up_ ; no way." Dean rubs his eye with the hand he withdrew from around Sam's, sighs, groans again. "I'll. Just two seconds, I'll. Imma start. Jus' two."

After five more minutes, they get started with chopping vegetables. Sam is being handed a beer, but Dean doesn't have any. Sam raises an eyebrow over the counter. "No more booze for you?"

"Nope." Dean's lips plop with the "p". Sam grins over his bottle, half happy, half disappointed. Dean sneers at him for that. "You laugh all you want, Bigfoot, but imma save both of us some dignity."

"What, just 'cause I pinched your nipple?" The word feels heavy on his tongue, sharp when he says it out loud. But it doesn't faze Dean, not at all. It's all in Sam's head, all of it, and maybe his smile fades a little when he is yet again shown that this is the case.

"Yeah, no," Dean groans. He shoves his chopped produce into the boiling water. "It's like, what would I do next? What if I pulled down my pants and you'd twist my balls o' somethin'? It's more professional like it is, trust me."

Coldhot shudders run down Sam's spine. He plays it off with a laugh. "You honestly think I'd do something like that?" _'Cause I would, and I don't want you to even_ joke _about that._

"What? God, no." Dean frowns at him, deepens his smile. "No. I mean, it's cool that we're this cool about it, you know? Like when before you started getting all virgin-like an' avoided touching people as if they had the pest o' somethin'."

Sam blinks over his chuckle. "I, uh. What? I never did that."

"Sure did. That summer in Lubbock. You went all OCD every time someone came close to you."

Lubbock, nineteen-sixteen. Yeah. "That's not how it was," Sam starts.

"Felt like it to me," Dean interrupts with a voice that is as quiet as it is certain. Sam gets a little side glance before those eyes lower over the next thing on Dean's cutting board.

Sam knows. Yeah, he knows. And he could correct Dean, could say "it wasn't with everyone, it was only with _you_ ", because that would be the true answer to so many things and questions and unclear stories in their shared past, to so many of Sam's current life, his entire life, his being.

That summer, it almost happened. It was close, too close, and Sam swore to himself he would never let it come anywhere close to that ever again. It was also the summer Sam decided to apply for Stanford; after those weeks and weeks alone with his sweaty, beautiful little brother in that lodge near the lake that taught him that in no possible or impossible scenario he could keep the monster at bay, not around Dean, not ever. That one day, he'd break, he'd let it take over and wash everything away, kill the last bit of innocence and childhood he preserved Dean to enjoy in their shitty life on the road, between shotgun shells and monsters' claws, between flames and graves and a ground that never stops shaking.

But Sam doesn't tell Dean any of those things. He prefers letting it rip his own insides apart instead of spreading the disease. It's his own curse, his alone, and Dean doesn't have to suffer at its filthy hands. "I can hold your hand _now_ if you'd like, Dianna."

Dean sneers, rams his elbow out and into Sam's side. They bury it under their joined laughter.

Later, on the sofa, the dark is thick around them, the popcorn buttery-sweet and Dean's body as hot as a furnace on Sam's. Dean didn't ask for permission when he climbed on top of him, almost laid down on Sam who had never been this happy to have his junk wedged so utterly and completely between his legs and underwear that it allowed him to hide his hard-on as if he had intended to do it. "This was easier when you were, like, two foot tall, champ," he chokes through his popcorn.

"Push me off if you don't like it." Sam doesn't, of course, munches his mouthful. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Dean's head is a soft weight on Sam's chest. He'd love to pet it, to run his fingers through that silky hair he can feel on his neck, but he won't push his luck. This is more than he could have dreamed of, anyway.

"I missed this," Sam hears again. He wonders if Dean knows he's saying that a lot lately, if he wants Sam to pick up on it. It's still wary sometimes between them, when Dean closes up when Sam doesn't expect to hit a wall, when Sam denies Dean something Dean expects to have full access to - invisible barriers they built over time and apart from each other.

"Me too."

He feels Dean stir, as if he was nuzzling Sam's chest. "When we stopped this, I, uh. I wanted to ask what was wrong, you know. Missed it back then already. But I thought… nah, I thought, Sammy knows what's best, maybe we're just too old, maybe he's getting weirded out, maybe this is not what grown-up brothers do."

He wants to say "but we were not grown-ups, not you; you were just a kid and I should have been able to hold you like you needed it", but instead he hums his approval.

"You had your girls, I guess, an' I started that too, so. Yeah. I dunno. I still missed it."

"Missed sleeping together?"

"God yeah."

"Showering?"

"Hey, we saved a lotta water like that."

"Guess we did, huh."

"Gallons. At least an entire ocean."

"At least."

"At least."

Dean's breath is hot through Sam's shirt and he could cry with how wet his cockhead is throbbing against the seams of his underwear, how completely wrecked Dean can turn him with talks like that, those tiny terrible ideas that Sam keeps in the lowest corners of his consciousness like bittersweet pills for rare occasions, for desperate moments, for long, lonely nights. How easy Dean can tell him things like that without even grasping how much it all means to Sam to hear it from his honeysweet mouth.

"When you left, I couldn't sleep for a month," Dean whispers.

"Me neither," Sam wants to say. Instead, he brings his sweat-damp hand to Dean's hair. His brother's deep, pleased groan almost has him coming into his pants like a little boy.

Sunday is rainy. Sam can hear church bells, lets the smell of wood sealing Dean applies in the corridor replace the taste of coffee on his tongue. He had been told to bring all the stuff he needs for the day to the kitchen since they won't be able to step on the drying floor until evening, at the earliest, rendering every room but the kitchen inaccessible. When Dean is done, it's about ten AM. Sam looks up from his book, finds tired eyes and stiff shoulders that rotate until there's a small cracking sound, a relieved sigh from a smooth throat.

"So," Dean starts, letting his gaze wander out of the windows. He shrugs on his jacket, sniffles. Sam finds a splotch of dried glossy sealing on Dean's back of the hand. "You wanna go out?" What a question.

To say that it is "strange" to get into the Impala is a vast understatement. Sam has to steady himself during the few seconds Dean needs to circle the front. He puts his hands on his knees, stares at the outlines of the glovebox. His memory betrays Sam as he still smells gunpowder, Old Spice, aged leather. The driver's door opens and Dean takes him back to reality, to clean scents, polished interior. Dean is taking good care of this car. During the ride, Sam fails to collect enough bravery to ask what the trunk looks like.

Dean drives them into town where it's not raining any less. "I wanted to show you around, but damn."

"It's alright," Sam assures. There are definitely worse places to be than in a warm car right next to his brother. When Dean doesn't stop to frantically look for a place to stop at, Sam tries, "We could drive to where it's not raining."

It's a joke, really, because who would do such a thing, outrunning the weather - but Dean visibly pauses and then nods to no one in particular. There is no urge in Sam to set this right.

The road stretches and stretches in front of them, the veil of rain a steady companion on the metal and glass protecting them. When the steady rhythm of the wipers starts to make Sam sleepy, he turns his head to look out of the window instead. Green meadows fly past them and oddly enough, they feel familiar. All of this, to be honest - driving shotgun with a silent driver to his left. Usually, the backseat would be a little noisier though, with little stories or hummed-along Led Zeppelin.

As if it wanted to be seen, the sign reading "Sioux Falls" is gleaming in the sun, still dropping with sparkling drops of rain. Sam's heart takes a leap and he smiles into his hand. "How is he?"

"Alive an' kickin'," Dean tells him.

Everything is still like Sam remembers it to be, like it maybe always has been and will be despite what will happen to this world, to them. The gate is rusty but sturdy, the chaos of car corpses and metal parts not as chaotic as everybody thinks it is on the first sight. Dean parks them in a not too muddy place, and the air is rich with oxygen. Sam takes a deep breath, can almost feel the earth vibrate with Bobby's steps inside the house. "Does he know we're coming?"

"Doesn't know you're with me," Dean says.

They go to the front door and Dean presses the bell. Sam's hands are stiff fists in his jacket's pockets. Just like a week ago, he doesn't know how the person behind that door will react to the sight of him, an unrequested and unexpected guest. Just like with Dean, Sam has his hopes and his fears about this encounter, and just like with Dean, he sticks with preparing for the worst.

Bobby complains all the way from where Sam knows the kitchen is right up to the door, and he can't help but giggle, even infects his little brother who throws a look over his shoulder. A dozen locks are pulled back rather quickly once Bobby took a peek through the door's peephole and gasps. Sam's heart races in his chest, even though Dean is like a barrier right in front of him, protecting him. Sam is wider, taller, but Dean does his best to shield him maybe without even knowing it.

The door flies open and Bobby's eyes are wide and wet on Sam, mouth gaping under a wild beard, hair unkempt and shirt stained.

"Look what the cat dragged in," jokes Dean with a soft nudge of shoulder, but Bobby doesn't answer, just stands there, staring in silence.

"Hey Bobby," Sam eventually chokes.

The old man pushes right past Dean and pulls Sam into an almost painfully tight hug which Sam naturally reciprocates. He smells and feels differently - not because Bobby changed only a tiny little bit, but because Sam changed. College and proper food gifted Sam with another bunch of inches, a good eighty pounds. Bobby who always felt like a whiskey-doused rock now is a little more brittle, maybe even fragile. But maybe that's just the nostalgia speaking.

They part and Bobby rubs his eyes where neither brother can see, head turned away, before he clears his throat, pats Sam's chest. "Good to see ya, boy." As he turns and goes for the door, he gives Dean a gentle pat on the cheek, too, which makes his little brother duck his head and chuckle. "An' you too. Jesus." In the doorway, Bobby sighs, lets his eyes swim without a destination in mind, wipes his hands on his too-saggy and too-worn jeans. "So, uh. You need a written invitation, or…?" Everybody smiles as they make their way into the house.


	3. Chapter 3

Nothing has changed, nothing. There's more dust, more books, but that's it. "Sorry for the mess." Bobby picks up several items from the couches and coffee table, most of them being empty bottles and loose papers, cut out newspaper articles. "Didn't expect any visitors."

"He's used to that," Dean answers for Sam. They have a seat and are almost swallowed up by the old furniture. Sam peeks to that one corner and yes, there's still that blood stain they couldn't get out after Dad's Rugaru "complication" in nineteen-ninety-one. Bobby asks if they want tea, coffee, anything, but they say they're good, thanks.

The springs creak under Bobby's weight as he lets himself drop down opposite to them, eyes awake and crystal clear and his face a little like a kid's like this, Sam thinks. "So. You're here, huh?"

"Guess so, sir," Sam smiles.

"It's good. I mean, it's good. Good to have you back, ya know. It's been, what? Ages!"

"Eight years," Dean corrects.

Sam folds his hands over his knees.

"Eight long years," Bobby repeats, runs his fingers through his beard, huffs a small laugh, looks Sam up and down. "Lookin' good. Changed, but good. What are you doin'?"

"He's a lawyer now," Dean says.

"Oh, really! Wow, Sam, congratulations."

Sam nods, smiles. "Thanks."

"So Stanford worked out for you? Must've been a hard deal of work."

"It was," Sam nods. He avoids to look to his right where Dean is sitting. "Had its good times and its bad times, but in the end I went through with it, I guess."

Bobby nods. "That's good. Great job, son. Good." Sam knows what sarcasm looks like on this face, what it sounds and tastes like. This isn't sarcasm.

"Check this out!" he hears. Sam startles as Dean grabs his wrist and extends his arm towards Bobby.

"Oh!" That face lights up. "Jesus fucking Christ, Sam! Who would have- Wow!"

Sam's smile is working hard to hold up. "I, uh, yeah."

"Since when? Do you have kids?"

"Five years," Sam says, "And uh, no, no kids. We've just got started getting our lives together, so… Yeah."

Bobby smiles over the golden band on Sam's finger, chases it as Sam folds it back as soon as Dean's hand lets go of him again. "Well, you've got all the time in the world," Bobby tells him.

Sam nods, swallows dry air. "Yeah," he says.

"Congratulations," Bobby repeats, eyes wetter than over Stanford, naturally. Sam rubs his knuckles, over the ring. "I'm so glad you're happy, Sam. That it all worked out for you."

"Me too," Sam mutters.

"I wished you woulda called us though, woulda let us know what you were doin'. We were worried _sick_ here, son."

There's little to no accusation, and still it hurts. "I know," Sam says.

"Couldn't have hurt to grab a phone every once in a while. It's not like anyone casted you out, ya know."

No movement to Sam's right. He rubs the back of his hand harder.

Bobby sighs, and Sam sees his eyes flicker in between the two of them, Dean and Sam, back and forth. "I'm just sayin', Sam. Woulda made everything a little… less complicated."

"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I know, but I couldn't, Bobby. You know I couldn't."

That's where Dean stands up and leaves the room. The front door bangs but no matter how long they listen for the Impala's engine, it won't go off.

"Y'can't blame him," Bobby mutters.

Sam shakes his head. "I don't."

"I'm sure you had your reasons. In your position, maybe I would've done the same." Bobby scratches his bearded cheek, runs his hand over the back of his neck. "It's good to get out, better sooner than later. A hunter's life don't end well."

A heavy silence.

"He told me about Dad," Sam tells him.

Bobby sighs, lets his shoulders droop low. He is still facing away from Sam.

"I'm sorry you had to take care of it, Bobby. Shoulda been me in front of that fire."

"It was a hard time," Bobby hums. "For all of us."

"I'm sorry," Sam repeats, more quietly now.

"It nearly killed the little one. You know how he is."

His head droops. His eyes are burning. He wants to say "yes" but it won't come out.

"He woulda needed you, Sam. Needed you from the first second you left. But _then_ …! I thought I'd lose him. I didn't know what to do. An' then his girl left, too, when I just thought it was getting better. Took the kid 'n just left. … I dunno what he did, Sam. I dunno what he told you."

"Nothing," Sam breathes. Everything is racing past him.

"Then maybe I should stop here," Bobby hums, more to himself than to Sam. Sam doesn't really agree but nods, because it's the best thing to do, the right thing. "Probably wouldn't fancy knowing that I told you any of this. He's gone through a lot, and I think it's great that you're here, don't think I don't. Just, uhm. Just."

"Yeah."

"You know him. Five-year-old in the body of a grown man, heart of a ninety-year-old hag."

Sam chokes a chuckle. "Yeah."

"One raw egg of a boy." He hears that smile on Bobby's mouth when he says, "Y'used t'call him your 'little angel'. God, you two were too adorable to be true."

Sam can blush and chuckle over that because it was before the time everything turned dark and ugly inside of him, when he didn't even know angels don't exist, when Dean's one and only vocabulary was "'am" and then "Sammy" and then "Where Sammy?".

After a while, Dean rejoins them, looks clear and refreshed and Sam imagines he took a walk along the fields, maybe kicked a few stones or punched a squirrel and decided he had to be an adult about all this, keep his emotions at bay in front of them. Sam never wanted this, to make his little brother do that for him. He had always loved every little thing about Dean, even the worst parts ( _especially_ the worst parts). But Dean grew up and Sam let it happen, let him figure it out by himself and this is what he earns from what he's sown.

Bobby fixes a giant pot of tea and they share stories over the old kitchen table Sam can still feel his first unsteady knife-carvings on. Dean participates with a chuckle here and there, a story from his garage, the house, nothing spectacular, nothing about a woman and a child or a Lisa or locked up letters - so Sam talks about Stanford, about San Francisco where Jess and him had decided to move to, how difficult the real estate situation is down there and how lucky they had been with their flat.

"Small," he muses over the question about a wedding, fingertips light on the rim of his cup, controlled and polite like his expression. "Beach, a few friends, campfire. Lots of Daiquiris."

"Hippie," Dean snorts and nudges Sam's side.

Sam smiles and continues other memories.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Bobby gets up and they hear him shuffle through his desk. He returns with a heap of papers that he lies out in front of them. "I know you're not in the business anymore, but I need a trained eye on this one, if you don't mind."

Sam starts opening his mouth to answer, but Dean is cutting in. He poses the usual questions, Dad's checklist, point after point, right down to every single word. He shoots answers quicker than Sam can wrap his mind around the information Bobby gives, and in the end, the papers can leave again with half a page of new, valuable notes and ideas. "Wow," Sam breathes. Dean pours himself another cup. "You're really good at this."

His brother shrugs. "Guess so."

Sam's mouth is hung in a loose smile. "Why'd you even stop in the first place?"

No answer, and just when Sam wants to repeat himself, Bobby is back and they drift off to something else before Sam can do anything about it.

Bobby offers them dinner, but Dean says that they'll be alright and they'll get going, thanks. They say their goodbyes and Sam has to give Bobby his cell phone number, promises to come over again soon, maybe for dinner then, maybe bring Jessica. Sam nods and says "yes" and smiles and he is relieved when they're finally in the car and back on the road again.

"I used to hate this," he mutters against the window, halfway to the Impala and halfway to his brother. Their headlights are the only brightness on the street, maybe the world in this thick blackness. "Driving… driving… We were always driving."

"At least we had a decent car," Dean says.

"Are you kidding me? It broke down every forenoon."

"Dad always fixed her."

"Yeah, after _hours_."

"But he _did_ ," Dean insists. A silence in which Sam realizes that it feels wrong to talk bad about John in his own car, the probably single piece of estate their father left for them. "I liked the driving."

Sam groans against the window. "No, you didn't. Always complained, always whined. 'Are we there yet, are we there yet?'"

"Shut up, that was _you_."

"Uh, nuh-uh, mister. You hated sleeping in here, kicked the back of my seat all the time, almost crawled out of the window during full speed. Worse than a bag of ants, seriously."

A beat. Yeah, right, kid.

"Was more fun when he didn't need you riding shotgun," Dean bursts.

Sam blinks. Yeah. Yeah, probably. When they were both in the backseat, huddled together like penguins in the cold, playing or reading or snoozing. Safety seats weren't a thing in their childhoods, so Sam would hold his squealing little brother up to the window for him to look out, tiny fat fingers still sticky with whatever candy John had bought to shut them up (very bad idea but hey, it worked for a while before he figured that out).

He turns his head to face his brother, finds him staring ahead dutifully, mouth a little pouty, brows a little furrowed. "You were one fat, noisy kid," Sam reminds him.

"Wasn't me who didn't have a girlfriend until eleventh grade."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

Dean's mouth brakes into a smile, and Sam's does, too.

They stop at a diner and Sam insists on paying. They're the first dollars he spends since he came here, and it's been time, seriously. It also gets him a salad without a nasty comment along the lines of "I will not spend money on LEAVES". His little brother looks scandalized for about half a second in front of the strawberry milkshake Sam ordered for him during his restroom break. Naturally, he ends up downing every last drop.

Sam watches him with a calm serenity, no monster in sight. There are things that Dean's lips around a colorful straw do to him, but he's too tired, too lulled into old, sweet childhood dreams. All he sees is his little brother, happy and hungry with a mouth and belly full of food, and food is good, Dean needs food, Dean is still growing, Sam will always make the agonizing churn of hunger stay away from his little brother. "Some things never change, huh?"

Dean burps. "Probably not." He pets his belly under the booth, leans back, wipes his mouth with a napkin and both hands. "You're still wearing it."

Sam's smile softens. "Does it surprise you that I do?"

"Not really."

He feels over where it's hidden underneath his shirt. "Never took it off. Ever."

"Not even for the wedding?"

"Especially not for the wedding." The horns are nice. Sam has scars to show where they pierced him over and over again, but this maybe counts among the things he has to keep to himself. "'T was like you were there with me. A little, at least."

Dean's head droops to the side. He eyes the menu again from afar, even though they are not planning on ordering anything else. "Could've been there with you for _real_ , dumbass."

"You woulda come?"

"Course I woulda," Dean breathes.

Sam lets the horn slip underneath his fingernail. "… Means a lot to hear that from you, you know."

"Yeah," Dean sighs.

They leave, and it's raining again, as if nothing changed while they were gone. Dean tests the floor and announces that it's all set. Sam excuses himself for the bathroom and when he comes back out, he hears the unmistakable clinking of bottles from the living room.

Dean is beautiful. Not "handsome", not "pretty" - simply and utterly _beautiful_. In the doorway, Sam is paralyzed by awe, by all the love and devotion he feels for this boy, this man, his brother. Even as that fat, noisy kid, Sam had loved him. How could he not be struck with all grown up, filled out, finalized Dean? Now, it's a mystery to Sam how he could think it would be any less hard on him to be close to this in comparison to barely-starting Dean, all gangly and unknowing limbs, plump cheeks where there are sharp contours now, baby down skin where there is scarred horny tissue now. Even back then, Dean felt like the epitome of the ripe, Forbidden Fruit. Sam has to come to terms with the fact that Dean had merely started to blossom back when he had robbed him of his sanity.

Those fingers curl around those bottle necks like a divine masterpiece, eyes casted downwards under lashes that are heavy in the low lights, knees wide apart and not afraid at all, innocent, unknowing. His jeans rides tight over his crotch, outlines what Sam cannot dare to think about, couldn't, or he'd lose his breath.

"Drink with me," Dean mutters.

Sam does. Even if he wanted, how could he ever decline such a soft offer from this even softer mouth? He didn't grow up to say "no" to this mouth, never learned how to do it.

Dean finishes his first beer quick, too quick for Sam to catch up. When Dean doesn't talk, not at all, doesn't look at Sam, it dawns on Sam that something is up, that something is different. Suddenly, the room is too crowded, too small, the dark like heavy velvet on their shoulders. Dean uncaps another bottle.

That's the thing though, isn't it? Once you open those doors, you can't close them again too easily.

"When you left," Dean begins, "he almost went crazy."

Sam closes his eyes.

"You know he never drank. But then? Fuck. I wished he would've. He was so... _angry_. I know you thought you'd seen him angry, but believe me, you hadn't. Not really. Not like that. ... After a while... You know, after a while, it got better. He shucked it off, tried to smile when he thought I was hoping he would. And sue me, but I bought it. You know... I wanted it to be over. I just wanted him to be himself again. During the jobs, he was alright; he never fucked those things up. But everything else... … … He missed you. He called your name in his sleep, fuckin' _cried_ for you." A cautious gulp, then a broader one. "First for Mom, then for you. He'd shiver an' mutter things like 'I lost him, honey, he's gone, I lost your son'." Silence, beer. Dean turns his face to the side where Sam can't see it, rests his chin on his hand. "That's what you did to him, Sam."

Sam hasn't touched his new bottle yet. Between his knees, he balances the first between his fingers. The guilt comes in sharp stitches of knives; razor blades to his guts. But he knew they would come. He has felt them for years.

"When I turned eighteen, he, uh."

The sound of Dean's wavering voice is worse than anything so far. Sam wants to reach out, to make it better, to help his brother - but he knows there is no way to do that. It's not in his power, not anymore.

"He gave me a, like a, uhm. An envelope, with some money in it. He asked me to hand over my gun. You know, the, uh... the one with the. The pearl grip. ... I asked why. He just said: 'It's over, son'. Over." A breathless laugh. "'Your brother was right', he said. I should, uh, find a- a ' _better way'_. Find a good job, a _real_ one. Go to school, whatever. Wife, kids. He wanted me safe. No more hunting, no more guns. That I should live my life. ... He sent me away, Sam."

"... Dean..."

"'I'll be fine,' he said to me. You know him. He's always, uh. Always..."

"Yeah."

Dean wipes his nose with a wet squelch. "We met, uh, five times since then. Uhm. Yeah. Uh, yeah, five. Yeah. One of 'em was Thanksgivin'. Can you believe that? One fuckin' Thanksgivin', that's what I got."

It's supposed to be a joke, it's supposed to make Sam chuckle along with his brother. It's impossible, and both know that. "It wasn't your fault," Sam says eventually.

Dean's sob is dry.

"Dad would… You know, he'd always go through with what he put his mind to. Nobody could've stopped him. T'was bound to happen, sooner or later."

"Not Dad," Dean says, "Not Dad, Sam, not Dad. Dad always made it out. Dad always found a way. He'd always. He'd _always_."

Unclear about what is the bigger miracle here - that Sam can hug Dean and feel just as pure as he did when a hug was only a hug to them, him; or that Dean actually lets him touch him in the state that he is in - but they both happen and maybe that's what tears down that wall for Sam to cry, finally cry, tears rolling down his cheeks and into Dean's hair, his brother's face wet and squished over his heart, shaking like a pile of leaves, one hand on the bottle, one hand reaching under Sam's arm and over the back of his shoulder, pulling him even closer, like a wall, a cave. Somehow they're children again, long before Dad's lesson about "staying strong" stuck to them, when Sam still remembered how their mother's lullabies sounded like, when Dean still had no idea about just how well their daddy knew how to shoot a gun.

Sam chants that he is sorry, over and over and over, and Dean must hear it, must, because Sam's voice runs out before his lips do with those words. They part and can't look into each other's faces, turn into opposite directions and Dean says he's going to sleep, doesn't put is bottle down, and Sam doesn't try to stop him, nods in a tired manner and buries himself in the cushions without pillow or blanket. He weeps in silence and runs his fingers over amulet and ring, amulet and ring, and he wonders if they can hear him from where they rest above the world, high in the clouds, and he wonders if they can forgive him.

The first jog in months leaves Sam's lungs and legs on fire, his head free and his chest wide open like after surgery. He showers, arranges handfuls of fruit that he stuffs his growling insides with, tries to find meaning in the clear echoes the emptiness inside him leaves him with. But there's nothing. No crack, no crudity; only blank, white space.

For the first time since he came here, he questions if it was right of him to put Dean through this. He knows he isn't alright, knew before he came here, knew before he even started putting the idea together in the smallest corner of his consciousness. Dean has his own demons, his own problems, and Sam is the older one and shouldn't just come here to unload his own luggage on top of this mess. If anything, it's his responsibility to look after his little brother, to make sure he is okay.

The option to spy on Dean's belongings is not even on the table anymore, not after last night. If even Bobby says he didn't know what to do with Dean, Sam is a hundred percent sure that last night has been the first time Dean has ever talked about all this with anyone. There is no doubt about that. Dean entrusted him with this, opened up more than it was probably healthy for him, unleashed something he had kept under control - with a cramping hand and bloody chafed layers of skin - long enough to forget its actual face. But Dean went to work like every other day, didn't leave a note, doesn't call. So Sam will wait.

"Sorry 'bout yesterday," are his little brother's first words when they face each other in the kitchen.

"It's alright," Sam assures. "I'm glad we got that out. Well, that _you_ did."

Dean leans against the doorframe, fidgets until his arms are crossed in front of his chest, nervous, somehow. "I. I might have issues, Sam."

Sam's chest grows tight. "... You do?"

A shy nod. "I. Could you, uh. I shouldn't get you involved in this, but… Can we not drink anymore? Please?"

Sam nods immediately. "Of course."

"Yeah, I'd. If, uh, if that's not. If you…"

"I can stand you while being sober, don't worry." He smiles.

Dean's copy is a sad try. "Good." He nods heavily enough to make his hair fan over his forehead from where he styled it this morning. "Good, that's. Thanks."

An awkward silence. Sam's smile suddenly feels misplaced.

"I, uh." Dean laughs, short and breathless. Sam can see his fingers move inside of his jeans' pockets. "It's not like, uh, as if you'd have to look after me. Just, like, when I start something like "hey, maybe we should grab a beer?' you just say 'no', that's. That's all. I won't be, y'know… taking shots while you're not lookin' or somethin'."

Sam's throat feels full. Again, he nods, tries to hold up his smile. "No problem."

His little brother huffs, rubs his nose. His eyes are swollen and desperately looking everywhere but into Sam's direction. "Sorry, I. It's, uh. It's not easy to talk about that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, man."

_This is your fault, you know? What did you expect? You_ left _him._

"Hey," Sam says as he gets up, "I'm glad that you're telling me."

Dean doesn't flinch when Sam walks towards him, eventually comes to a halt, runs his hand over this suddenly very fragile-looking shoulder.

"Are you in treatment?" he whispers.

Dean shakes his head.

"Not anything?"

"I'm a lot better," Dean mutters. "I, I usually can keep it down pretty well, you know. I don't think that I'm… That I'm, you know, like... seriously." He looks up through his lashes, not twenty-two but maybe five with his baby fat padded hand stuck in a cookie jar. "I'm not sick, Sammy."

"Okay," Sam hums.

"After Dad, it was… I mean, it _was_ really bad. It's better now, really better, but I, uh. There are things I'm not proud of, an'..."

"You don't have to talk about it if you're not ready."

"Yes, I do. I owe you that much."

Sam groans and is very close to stomping his foot. He rolls his eyes instead. "Oh _Dee_."

"That's _different_ ," Dean insists. "I should have been strong, and I wasn't."

Sam's hand drifts up, over clothed collar bone, bent neck, soft skin, softer. "You've always been so refined with that pride of yours," he remembers out loud.

He feels Dean swallowing against his palm, could sing and cry and hug his little brother and keep him safe. "'What's a life without morals?'" Dean muses in an exhale.

_Mine_ , Sam thinks. "An animal's," Sam says.

Dean is starting a cupboard. Sam is allowed to hand him the pieces he asks for from where he aligned them along the front. They work in silence, Sam in a muted prayer over how Dean's arms flex when he works the saw in a slightly hunched-over position, eyes trained where blade cuts through wood like butter. He likes sweat on his brother, likes furrowed brows and deep creases and the smell of burnt wood. He likes Dean in too-thin t-shirts, too-tight jeans, thick working gloves and plexiglass eye protection. He likes the rough "that one", a strict forefinger, a smooth "thanks" and a grip for the cup of coffee Sam offers eventually. Dean's breath is white-hot in the air, his body almost steaming, and Sam is shuddering with everything but the cold.

He says, "You're amazing," and it tastes like "I love you" on his tongue.

Dean's eyes are sharp and big and warm like the curl of his lips, the shine of his teeth - white and perfect and Sam has always wondered what it would feel like to run his thumb over them. Or his lips. Or his tongue. Or his cock. "Does your wifey know her husband is such a flirt?"

Only with you, and nobody knows; nobody. "She knows her little brother-in-law is a true pedigree poodle."

"You told 'er that?"

"You bet."

Dean's grin widens. "What else?"

Sam knows Dean craves this kind of attention. He likes to be talked about, likes to hear what he already knows - that he's handsome, that he's amazing, that he's cute and clever and oh _God_ is he talented with his hands. "She knows you're a Batman fan," Sam smiles.

Dean laughs, high and clear as a bell.

"And that you love licorice. And Indiana Jones. And cars. And that your birthday is the twenty-fourth January, and that you have freckles all over your shoulders."

"I sound nice," Dean appreciates over the measurements he applies to the new piece.

" _Are_ nice," Sam approves. "She knows about that time you almost bit off my toe."

"Oh come ON, you told her _that_?! Fuck you!" They laugh and the entire garden is filled with it for a moment, a blissful, heavy moment. "You think she still wants to meet me? Despite the toe thingy?"

A breeze brushes through Sam's hair, his clothes. It isn't even cold. "I'm sure she'd love to."

Dean is warm, smiling and warm, freckles and milky white skin, dark dark dark blond that turns into wheat under merciless summers, soft fall of eyelids that melted Sam even before he comprehended just how much there was to love about it. Sam touches his fingertips to his ring and wishes that she doesn't watch him look at his brother like he is doing it.

"Y'really gotta introduce us some time," Dean repeats.

Sam nods, smiles to himself and the garden and the freezing winter winds.

"Are you rich?"

Sam looks up from his cards and maybe Dean's naked toes where they peek out from where he's got his legs folded and crossed. "Do I look rich to you?"

"No," his little brother shoots over shameless, open-mouthed smacks on his candy. He plays his turn and makes Sam sweat in yet another way. "But your wallet is kinda stuffed, man."

Sam stills. "You went through my stuff?"

As if the conversation bored him, Dean rolls his eyes. He looks so young with his eyes so big like that, especially in combination with the candy, the too-big sweatpants, the still bathtub-water-dripping strands of hair. " _Duh_. Welcome to the Winchester family. I'm afraid we've run out of club jackets though."

"It's neither polite nor legal to do that, Dean."

Dean stuffs another handful of licorice into his mouth. "Didn't you say you guys were just getting' started with your lawyer business? So where's all that money _comin'_ from?"

Sam takes a deep breath, plays his card. "It's my savings."

"From what? The scholarship money you lived off?"

Sam keeps his eyes on their cards on the table. Dean's next sails down without his fingers.

"Don't lie."

He blinks, pretends to study his cards.

"Not to me. Lie to everyone, your clients, your wife; I don't care. But not to me, Sam."

He looks up but those eyes are averted, deep in those cards. Unreadable. Not that Sam would need to read them with clear words like that. Dean always was the champion of clear, direct words.

"So, what?" His lips are purpleblackblue from the candy, shiny and wide and Sam has never dedicated so much thought to licorice in his entire life. "You robbed a bank? Won the lottery?"

"... I sold a few things," Sam grits eventually.

"'Things'," Dean repeats. "Like, gold bars? A genuine Picasso?"

His mouth opens but he can't say anything. There's one word, one, and it'd be enough, would be all the answer he has, but it would open the door to so many more questions about so much worse things. He feels his breath coming thinner, runs his hand back through his hair. "Not now, Dean."

"We even talked about _Dad_. It's only _money_ , dude!"

"Not now," he repeats.

"I-"

Sam forces his eyes down, down, not to Dean, not to those eyes, that nostrils that flare with his angered snort, the furious bite to a lip.

"You've got nerves, you know that? I tell you about- about my shit, an' you-" Dean stops himself there and Sam's shame burns deep. He knows and he _knows_ but it's not that easy, not yet; he's not ready for that yet.

The cards are being slammed down in front of him and he watches those feet stomp off, away, and it's better like this right now.

Later, he hears him coming downstairs, of course, even hears him slipping out of bed. Sam pretends to be asleep, wants to see but hearing and feeling will have to do. Dean enters the living room through the wide open door, tip-toeing and never ever twenty-two years old.

There's no movement for a long time, just timid little breaths from afar. Sam used to do this exact thing a lot and had become somewhat of an expert at it by the time he left for Palo Alto. Silent ghost of a presence, unnoticed, there, always there in the shadows. Dean would sleep and Sam would watch how his chest and belly would rise and fall, how his eyes would move under his eyelids, how his fingers would twitch (maybe something else, too, if he was being lucky).

And now it's the other way around and funnily enough Sam can smell that remorse up to where he rests on the couch. Maybe Dean even knows that Sam is not asleep. It wouldn't surprise him at this point, and it probably wouldn't change anything about this scene either.

There are small steps over wood first, carpet later. Sam's hair is brushed out of his face by warm fingers, his forehead skimmed by a thumb.

"Sorry for the yelling," says a whisper.

"I'm not mad," Sam answers.

Silence, warm palm on his head, maybe burning his skin there (it wouldn't matter).

Sam's little brother - and Sam knows that, even though he's never been like that with Sam - is a shy animal. Sure, he's acting all grown-up and tough, but Sam has seen the panic in bright red splotches on those cheeks before his very first date and every other first date with any other lucky little girl he's chosen. Dean got into fights a lot at school (just like Sam) even though he was rather popular among his classmates (not so much like Sam). People were quick to cross his tight lines, a little because he made it look like there weren't any to begin with, and then a little because, well, who wouldn't try to befriend Dean? Smart, funny, pretty, even in grade school.

But Dean always decided against friends, even in settings they had for several weeks or even months. No, he'd stay by himself, date a few girls when he started figuring that stuff out, and concentrated on whatever duty Dad would give him. Dean loves guns and martial arts and he loves praise, learned having a strict set of rules to go by. People don't come with manuals. You can't take apart and reassemble them in under a minute whenever you feel the need to do so. With Sam, his big brother Sam, that was different, of course. Sam was the one person Dean could trust, because Sam knew exactly how Dean worked. Maybe, in a way, it was partly Sam who helped Dean become like this. He always used to tell Dean that _no_ , it is absolutely okay to enjoy being on your own and _yes_ , just because someone tells you that's wrong doesn't _make_ it wrong. Whatever Dean did was a miracle to Sam and whatever Dean needed, Sam would provide it. Sam was a mother when Dean needed a mother, a father, a brother, a friend. He would have done everything for that kid before he even knew just how much pain the human body can endure before it blacks out into unconsciousness, and now that he does, he would do it just as naturally.

Dean is a shy animal and it takes a lot of patience to draw him out. And Sam has time. Lots.

The cupboard is being finished and stocked. They step back and admire the completed work. "Beautiful," Sam concludes, and maybe almost doesn't mean the proud swell in Dean's chest.

Dean nods. "I've been thinking," he says.

"Oh?"

"I never had the chance to give you guys a wedding present."

Sam's laugh huffs through his nose. "Dean-"

"Nonononono, Sammy, I wanna do this. C'mon. Is there something you'd like? You like my cupboards, don't you."

"Yes, I mean, they are-"

"I can do other stuff, too. Tables, chairs." Dean looks over at him and wriggles his eyebrows. "Beds."

Sam's chest feels wide, too wide. The image of their empty apartment returns to him, the neat costume of the saleslady and his swift signature under the contract, her "oh, it's such a shame, sir". "Lemme think about it," he tries, smile wide and hopefully not too fake.

Dean's eyes are warm and forgiving. They always are with him. "Whatever you say, captain."

The library is not too impressive, just like the entire town. Sam learns about a shop or a certain corner from his favorite mouth but even those words don't seem to try too hard to turn Sam into a fan. Dean's hands are deep in his pockets, his eyes tired, his shoulders set. It's cold, but they've been cold before and Dean can be sturdy if he wants to. If. "You don't go out here much, do you?" Sam wants to know.

Dean shakes his head. "No."

It would be less boring if Dean would try to sell this to him, if he had a passion. But Dean doesn't love this town. He doesn't even particularly _like_ it. "Why'd you buy a house here if you don't like the place?"

"It's close to Bobby's," Dean shrugs.

"And where'd you stay before you bought it?"

Dean's back is wide in this jacket. "Road, more or less."

"'More or less'?" Sam repeats.

"More or less," Dean nods. Then: "Stayed at my girlfriend's every now 'n then."

"Girlfriend?"

Sam can _taste_ that roll of eyes. "Yeah, Sam, I have girlfriends."

"Something serious?"

"Serious enough for her to let my scrawny ass into her home."

Sam smiles because Dean smiles. "She got a name?"

A blink, the soft roll of lips at that first letter. "Lisa."

Sam stops smiling because Dean's smile starts drifting away, too.

A drop of head, a shudder. "But uh, that's over, so. Saw the house, an', well, what can I say - signed the papers an hour later. That's that, I guess. Magical home shopping."

Dean bought the house six months ago. Dad died two years ago. Lisa happened somewhere between the two. Sam feels weight being added to his chest. "You miss her?"

Dean's hair shines in the grey daylight when he tilts his head for a laugh, flat and not happy at all. Tired. A hand darts out from that pocket, over that neck and down the collar of his jacket. "Nah, it's, uh... Nah. It's better this way."

Sam wants to rub that skin, too, wants to make Dean feel that he is there, right there for him, holding him. Both know that they both know that Dean doesn't tell the truth, and both know Sam won't address it. Sam's chest is hollow and the ring on his finger warm in his pocket. "… Is there. Is there anyone else right now?"

That hand slips off and away again, into unseen insides of pocket, where Dean thinks Sam won't notice the picked-at skin on his nailbeds. "Hm… No. No." Another shrug. Sam loves the way Dean's legs bow even when he walks; as if they'd collapse every second under the weight he carries. "I'm startin' to think that maybe I'm just not the type for the serious stuff, y'know."

Sam hums his approval because he doesn't know what else to say.

The city is damp and freezing and even though there are other people walking the streets with them, Sam knows the two of them are in this alone.


	4. Chapter 4

Bone shines white under the kitchen lights. Dean's knife disconnects tendon from muscle, good from bad, delicious from inedible. There are stray cats roaming the neighborhood and maybe raccoons, so Dean approves of Sam's idea of placing the safe parts out on the porch.

"This house needs a _dog_ ," Sam decides when he closes the door behind him, rubs his shoulders with his stiff fingers. "They love leftovers. And people! Would be less lonely out here."

"I don't need a dog," Dean frowns. Wine pours over rosemary and chicken.

"Just sayin'. Would be nice." Sam smiles, walks over to Dean to peek over that shoulder. He'll never get tired of dog talk, especially in such a setting - with a person he loves, in a place they're all by themselves, evening cozy and a weekend ahead, all kinds of possibilities. Dreaming is always nice.

"I'm out workin' five days a week, y'know." Sam loves the way Dean doesn't push him off, doesn't even flinch when Sam lets his chin drop to his shoulder. He just keeps on working as if this is nothing special, nothing to worry or be awkward about. Just like Sam wants it to play out like. "Once you, uh-" The baking pan is grabbed. Dean bends down, steps back to shove it into the oven. His ass and backs of thighs collide with Sam who holds his breath and almost jumps backwards from the unexpected contact. "-once you're gone again, there'll be nobody around to take care of 'im, so. Nah." It's over just as quick as it came and while Dean just straightens up and wipes his hands on a nearby kitchen towel, Sam has to calm his heartbeat with serious efforts. "You an' dogs, seriously. Surprises me that you 'n the Miss don't have one. Or an entire pack."

"No time. Work," Sam grimaces.

"Oh, the irony."

"Guess so."

Dean leans back on the kitchen counter, hips pushed out. Sam wants to hike those legs up around his waist, push Dean's back down into discarded herbs and stray spots of wine, make Dean groan Sam's name. "So, uh, once we're already at that."

Sam jolts. "Uh, what?"

"The, uh. You know." Dean gestures vaguely into the room. "The. How long you're planning to. You know."

"To stay?"

"Yeah," his little brother makes.

Sam sags in on himself. "Uhm. To be honest, I. I haven't given that too much thought yet."

"Doesn't have to be a, a date or anything, just." Dean shrugs. "Weeks? Months? Decades?"

 _Centuries_ , Sam thinks. "Dunno. Months, maybe? But I can leave if you don't-"

"No, no, that's not it, uh, I." Dean almost drops forward in his effort to get his message across. It's adorable, really. "I mean, don't get me wrong - I enjoy having you here! I really do."

Sam smiles because how couldn't he at words like that; that shy embarrassment creeping into Dean's cheeks? " _But_ …?"

"But, uhm." Eyes dart away, back, away. "You know, I. I need a kind of, you know, direction? Something to plan with. I don't want this to be like, uh, you know, I wake up and you're kinda… gone? Or you getting' a call from home and goin' like 'aw sorry Dean-o, wife called, will deliver baby tomorrow, gotta go, bye'. Y'know. Something like... Something like that."

A warning. Dean wants a warning. "You mean… not like with Stanford," Sam concludes.

"Yeah," Dean makes under a shrug. His eyes are directed to the floor. Loose limbs, breathless chest, pale mouth. Sam wishes he could undo it, already wished while he was doing it that there was another way. Unfortunately, there wasn't. This was the only way.

"As soon as there's something in sight, I'll let you know. Is that alright with you?" He makes his voice sweet, deep and soft - bitter medicine on a cube of sugar.

Dean nods, soft at first and then wilder, until he dares to look up into Sam's eyes, deep green a little wet and not too black from panic.

Sam isn't sure if this is the time to say this, but his mouth is quicker. "I'm so sorry for how it happened," he breathes.

Dean doesn't answer, only looks at him.

"I can't imagine what you had to go through because of me. Please believe me when I say that… that if there'd been another way, I-"

"You could've taken me _with_ you," Dean whispers.

Sam's arms hang uselessly by his sides. The oven works loud and hot. Sam swears he can even hear the lightbulb crackling with electricity. "I really couldn't," Sam says. "I'm so sorry."

Years with Dad left Dean without the motivation to ask for reasons.

 

The attic is surprisingly roomy. From the outside, Sam had seen that there are windows, but he couldn't have imagined how beautifully all those flakes of dust would sail in the daylight. Dean tells him that this will be the last thing he'll take care of, even after the garden. He says he has enough space anyway, that two guestrooms are strange enough for a person who doesn't invite guests over. "You're one strange little man," Sam quotes, and Dean smiles for it.

Snow is covering half of the windows by now. Its crystals paint dots of lights to the ceiling. Sam is not surprised not to find a single item up here. Where other families store their Christmas decoration, their old rugs or out of season clothing or their grandparents' dust-collecting estate, they have nothing.

"Did he leave you anything else beside the Impala?"

"No," Dean says.

The room is empty. Most of the house, too. Sam imagined Dean likes it this way, likes it neat and minimalistic, functional. It begins to dawn on him that there is simply nothing _there_ for Dean to possess.

"I have a…" Dean starts, stops himself, blinks against the dust where Sam can't see. He turns around, looks at Sam - no, a little bit next to Sam's face. "In my bedroom. If you want. I have a few photos that I could save."

And Sam's heart aches. "Yeah."

They leave the attic behind with an elegant arch to Dean's back when he folds the ladder back in place. Sam prays that Dean can't see his violent heartbeat in how it rattles his chest, in the pulsing artery on his neck. He hadn't given the damn room a single thought for weeks now and maybe that's not a big deal anyway. It's just a _room_ , isn't it?

When Dean pulls out a key from the front pocket of his jeans, Sam knows this is not just a room.

Behind that door, it tries hard just to be a room. There are curtains, a bed, a nightstand, a wardrobe. Just a bedroom. Just a room.

Except that this is Dean's. And Dean is everywhere here.

Sam sees Dean in the ebony darkness of the curtains, in the soft, smooth white of the walls. He sees him in the clean linen beddings in the color of a light cream. There are Dean's hands sanding down the edges of this bedframe, his eyes deciding for cherry instead of oak. Dean is in the barely-there bedside lamp, its clear, linear shape, in the hand-carved twirls and patterns on that teeny-tiny knob on that drawer. Dean is in the air, light and barely there, heavy and sticky when you get it into your lungs, turning your throat raw and dry. Dean is in the soft slide of socked feet over smooth wooden floor and then short, rough carpet.

Dean in front of the wardrobe is something by itself. They open in perfect harmony; Dean's arms and these doors. Snow is falling outside, casting delicate shadows over neatly folded piles of cotton, maybe t-shirts, over denim and miles of flannel. Two ironed button-downs seem to float in all that wide space together with a single dust protection covered suit. Dean has to get on his toes to reach the top shelf and Sam watches him stretch, closes his eyes on that strip of skin that is freed between hem of shirt and seam of jeans.

They sit down on the bed, Dean's eyes on the album in his hands and Sam's eyes on Dean's hands on the album. They are not shaking but the knuckles gleam white. Under laundry detergent and soap, Sam can smell his little brother very clearly here. Here is where he sleeps every night, where he tosses and dreams and sweats. It's almost too much to handle for Sam but there is no exit from this right now. He will have to hold himself together.

"It's not much," Dean begins as he opens the heavy, black cover. The first page says "Winchester". Dean turns it and the very first picture is them. Newborn baby brother with barely-out-of-his-diapers big brother, out like lights, together in baby's crib. Sam is sucking on a pacifier and Dean on Sam's thumb. Sam can't hold back a huff. "I tried to save as many as I could."

Third page. Mom, holding little Sam close to her heart, both grinning wide at the camera.

Fourth. Dad and Mom. She's wearing a dress as blue as the sky behind them. Both are laughing. Both are happy.

"These are the only ones I have of her."

"I don't know this one." Sam feels over the soft edges of the photograph as if it would tear at a too rough touch.

"Dad kept it in his wallet," his little brother tells him.

Page after page, picture after picture, the boys in the pictures age. The quality drops, too, because obviously a child cannot take pictures as well as an adult. But there are many, despite the fact that they did not have a regular camera on hand. Sam can't even explain to himself how most of these snaps found their way into development.

"Bobby provided some."

Polaroids.

Sam swallows.

Dean. Dean in every perspective, every situation. Dean sleeping, Dean eating, Dean climbing a tree, Dean with a crown of foam in the bathtub. Dean was maybe eight. Sam was maybe twelve.

"These are adorable," Dean smiles next to him. Sam can't share. "You really had an eye for photography. Artist."

There are photos of him, too. Long and gangly and always too thin, hair always too long. Oily skin and giant hands, trousers at half-mast. Dean exclaims how shy Sam used to be when most of his pictures show more of a palm than anything else. Dean doesn't know Sam hated himself back then already and that there would be more pictures now if Sam hadn't found and destroyed them shortly after they had been taken.

Like they are chasing something, a distant life they can no longer get back to, they flip through the album until there suddenly appears Dean's grown-up face after the last bits of teenagehood. When Sam's eyes understand that there is another face next to it, the album is slammed closed.

He looks up into a suddenly very pale face.

Dean's mouth opens, closes.

"Lisa." This is not a question.

"It's, uhm. It's, I. I forgot that I…"

Sam's fingers find Dean's hand on top of the cover. Dean exhales loudly and shakes with it.

"I'd love to see those," Sam says.

It takes a moment for Dean to nod, but he does.

The album opens up right where they left off.

Lisa has freckles too. She's young and beautiful with dark, dark eyes and even darker hair, tanned skin. Her and Dean smile up to their ears. A carnival decorates the background.

Next page. Lisa in yoga clothing, sitting Indian style. A baby, maybe half a year old, lies in her lap while she writes something down on loose sheets of paper in front of her. She doesn't seem to know that her photo is taken, but the baby looks straight up into the lens.

Next. Lisa pointing excitedly at the baby grabbing the Impala's steering wheel from where he sits in her lap. Her boots are muddy and the baby is wearing a knitted hat that resembles a bear, ears included.

Next. Baby's face getting squished in a toothless laugh between Lisa's lips from the right and Dean's from the left.

"We met at a bus station in Akron," Dean mumbles.

Next. Baby dangling from Dean's hands, upside-down, red and full of spit from laughter. Dean looks happy.

"She tried to make it look like she wasn't about to cry. Was pushin' the stroller even though Ben was already asleep."

Next. Dean covered in finger paint but absolutely not pissed about it.

"I went up to her, asked her where she was headed. She said 'nowhere' an' first I just wanted to say, like, you know, 'oh, me too, what a coincidence, we should drop your baby off at some daycare and book a room'."

Lisa kissing Dean on the cheek while he is asleep with baby Ben on his chest.

"But. Y'know. It was a week after... Since I was riding single. So I sat down with her, put my hand on her shoulder, an' I said nothing. Then she started bawling. I tried to smile but that only made it worse, somehow."

Dean kissing Lisa on the mouth.

Ben spitting out the single candle on a tiny cake, Ben and Lisa cheering him on from both sides.

"He left her just before she went into labor. Can you believe that? Asshole."

Dean in an oil-stained blue overall, holding Ben upright on a motorcycle. It's signed "Visiting daddy at work, 1999/04/26" in a familiar, curly handwriting.

"He looks like a great kid," Sam says. He has to say something, anything, or his heart will burst.

He watches Dean nod, that little spike of smile on his lips. "Yeah. The best."

Dean's forefinger pushes into Sam's vision, right over the almost bald baby head in the photograph.

"Really felt like he was mine."

Dean turns the page, but Sam can't look anymore. His throat seems padded with barbed wire. "Where are they now?"

"I don't know," Dean whispers.

"What happened?"

Dean sighs, turns the page. " _I_ happened."

Dad's face brings Sam's attention back to the pictures. Thanksgiving dinner, two-thousand. Dad looks grumpy and haunted but holds little Ben on his lap with the grace of a saint.

"Last time I saw him," Dean points out.

After a handful of more pictures, the pages are blank. The writing underneath the last date back to last Christmas. Three years of a relationship, and the album closes.

They stare at the rich black leather binding for a long moment. The house is quiet under the snow, their slow breathing barely there.

"You gotta promise me you'll make lots of babies with your girl, alright?" Dean's voice is thin but tries to please, to sound happy, even. Sam doesn't dare to look at him. It's like bursting and crumbling to hollow pieces at the same time. "I want, like, an entire _army_ of nephews an' nieces. Kids are the best."

"She's dead," Sam says.

He stares at white and beyond, through Dean's skin and bones and everything there is. He wants to fall apart and shatter on the ground. There won't be many shards to pick up.

Next to him, Dean does not move. Maybe doesn't dare. Maybe didn't clearly hear him. Sam is not sure how loud he just spoke.

White always makes him think of her. She loved white dresses. Her wedding gown was the hardest to get rid of out of all their belongings.

There might be a hand coming down on his shoulder, but Sam is not too sure.

"March. Traffic accident," he mumbles under a nod.

Out of everything that is comforting about an embrace, it is the scent of Dean's hair that sends Sam's soul sighing.

 

When he wakes up, the first thing he does is take a deep breath. It has become his morning ritual, here in Dean's bed. The pillow next to him is still warm. He scoots over, buries his face, breathes again. This is heaven and hell and everything he ever could have asked for.

Dean lets him sleep together with him in his bed because both of them need it, in a very weird and not very mutual way. Sam knows Dean needs the closeness, that even if he did decline Sam's tongue on his bloody knee, he aches for its invisible drag over the blisters and holes on his insides. It helped before they could define what grief was, what love was, and maybe it can help now, too.

Dean doesn't know that Sam only stays in bed this long because it gives him the opportunity to bring himself to climax surrounded by his scent and body warmth (a little as if he really was _there_ with him). No, he figures it's a sign Sam finally lets himself go, tackles his exhaustion about the loss, now that it's out, now that this final, gigantic wall has fallen between them. No more secrets. They know everything now.

Yes. This is what Dean thinks. And Sam will let it be like this.

Just like he remembers it, Dean tosses a lot at night. He mutters and groans and generally dishes out a very colorful palette of sounds that make Sam bite his knuckle to muffle moans while spilling into a dutifully placed tissue. Dean's calves are hairy where he sometimes shoves them over to Sam's side, where his sweatpants ride up to reveal soft, blond fuzz. He's never had much body hair, and there are no words to put together Sam's feelings about how this delicate little detail out of all of them remained the same while he was gone.

To his immense relief, Sam can finally clarify for himself that he is not a pedophile. No: he loves adult Dean just as much as kid Dean, as teen Dean. Maybe a little more so, because he is everything he ever was, but polished to perfection. Everything Sam loved back then is still there and maybe even better now. Soft hair, a glimpse of freckles underneath that collar and down those arms, strong and big and sometimes curled around Sam when he wakes up; diamond bones underneath lean flesh with just the right amount of fat, turning it into bliss every time Sam dares to touch.

And he _could_ touch. He could kiss. He could do a lot of things, actually. But he could have done all that back then, too - and he hadn't. He could buy pills, drop them into Dean's drinks, stuff them into his sandwiches, and maybe it would be all-too easy. But his hunger is not about that. In a way, yes, a very distinct and feral way, it is _just_ about that. But Dean is not only about skin and blood and soft creases of body.

Dean is the noise Sam hears when nobody is around. Dean is the smell that lingers with him no matter how long he tries to wash it off of himself. Dean is the word and the sensation and the promise that life is precious.

Lashes flutter where Sam's never closed since they went into bed last night. They spent enough time together now that they don't have to be able to see to look at each other, just like it used to work between them. It is more in a way that it is less than that, deeper and clearer. Dean takes a heavy breath that could be a sigh, scrounges his nose. He doesn't feel like getting up. Sam watches freckles disappear in wrinkles before they unfold again. Every morning is a miracle with Dean.

When he is lucky, Dean peeks at the alarm clock just to groan "Five more minutes" and roll over even closer to him, so close that Sam thinks the heat of his brother's sleep-doused body could severely damage him. Dean's morning breath is sour and Sam can't imagine a better breakfast than to lick it straight out of the hollows of those teeth.

"Mornin', sleepy head," Sam mocks, because it gives him a reason to tickle his fingers over that scalp, those silken locks he buries his face in, too, just because he can.

Dean complains "mmmh" and buries himself deeper against the nape of Sam's neck. There's an arm too, and for the first time since Sam started to demand more "privacy" in their sleeping situations, he feels one of those legs shoving over his own and up his hip, clamping down as if Dean was a little monkey.

Sam almost chokes on his tongue and wishes for Dean to be too sleepy to notice the sweat on Sam's skin where he is pressed up against it. He pulls Dean closer. If Dean should notice something, Sam has the morning wood excuse on his side.

But nothing comes.

Dean is half awake, half gone. His breathing says "present", the weight of his limbs says "asleep". Sam's heart is racing and Dean must feel it. But Dean doesn't move an inch.

When Sam tries to look back, it is hard seeing clear imagines of what has been. It is impossible to say how secretive he was at times, especially in the beginning when he didn't even know what he was doing ( _that_ he was doing it). Up to some point, Dean must know himself that how they are and what they do is not normal, not even for them. Despite their upbringing and life-or-death situations, a connection like this cannot be justified with "just being siblings".

Sam always wondered what reality Dean decided to see.

 

The counter bows under the weight of their newest grocery haul. Sam knew they'd outdone themselves this time, but this verges on _dangerous_.

"We have hoarding issues," he observes over a wipe of hand on sweaty forehead. "Food hoarding. Is that a thing?"

Dean unloads another armful of bags. "Thought _you_ were the smart one." The stuff won't even fit. Dean shoves and squeezes but half of everything falls to the ground. "Shit." They pick it up but have to keep everything in their arms without a free inch of space to put it down. "We can't even _prepare_ anything in here," Dean breathes. He looks shocked.

"What about the table?"

Dean frowns, spins his head to face Sam. "What?"

"Uh, the table." Sam nods over to the middle of the room. "If we cleared it…!" He lets the idea hang in the air between them.

Dean looks from Sam to table and back, then sticks to the table. He huffs a breath as if he didn't expect it to be there.

"Always wondered why you leave it like this." Sam kneels down to drop the products safely to the ground. He just mopped the floor yesterday, so it should be fine. "Doesn't really suit the room. We could eat here instead of crouched over the couch, you know?" He stands up, walks to the furniture in question. The tiny gaps between all the junk piling high on it present an old, ruined tabletop. It's nothing like Dean's works. Maybe it was here ever since he moved in, but he must have put it back in place after tiling the room. Sam picks up a hammer whose handle is split in two, frowns at it and then at his little brother. "Like, seriously, Dean."

Dean hasn't moved.

"… Dean?"

A step towards his brother. "Hey. Are you alright? Dean?"

A jolt, harsh blinking. "I, uh. Yeah, I. It's. We should do that."

Sam's brows bow in worry. "You sure?"

Dean nods, slowly and then quicker. "Yeah. Yeah."

Sam takes the groceries from Dean's arms and hands to place them next to the others. When he stands back up, Dean is in front of the table, one hand dangling next to him, one in front of him where Sam can't see. His head is bowed as if he was looking at something. "… Dean?"

Silence. Sam watches the other hand come up, slowly, as if Dean was suddenly very tired. He sees it grab an empty bottle, how his little brother's head turns slightly to where he is holding the new object.

After a while, Sam suggests, "I'll get a trash can."

"Yeah," Dean breathes.

It is on Dean to make the first move. Instead of picking up piece by piece, he shoves his forearms out and under the mess, delivering most of it into the bin Sam holds out under the edge of the table. It continues like this until the bin is too heavy and until Sam drops to his knees to collect what missed the rim. His brother is panting, almost furious in his effort to clear the surface.

When everything is quiet again - glass and metal and everything in between make quite a hell of a noise when being smashed together -, Sam dares to get up. The table is everything but clean, but cleared it is.

Deep carvings in the wood read "Don't". They are framed by multiple blocks of lines of five.

A tally.

Dean doesn't talk, Sam doesn't talk. Both stare at the letters.

"I want to burn this," says Dean eventually.

"Let's," answers Sam.

Sam watches his little brother chop the table with an axe. The snow is full of splinters and nothing will burn very good like that, but maybe that is not of importance. Sam feels a pang of nostalgia hitting him when he uncaps the gasoline and pours with his panting brother in his back. He keeps his eyes down where the carvings are illegible now as he hands Dean the matches.

The sound and smell are like a disc on repeat. There is nothing unfamiliar about this. They are used to fires.

Together, they watch the flames devour the dry patches, gleaming almost yellow-white in the darkness of this winter night. Wood crumbles, groans. Old turns to dead, alive to black.

If it is Dean's arm around Sam's waist first or the other way around is nothing either of them spends a thought on.

 

Even if angels aren't real, Dean is. Maybe that is enough to make up for it.

Sam's eyes drift and eventually stay closed in the hot bathtub, lavender in his pores and the deep drum of Dean's voice on the tiles. A piece of their childhood in reversed roles - one soaks in the bath while the other reads a story from the top of a closed toilet lid. Dean reads him Tolkien.

They make a regular event out of it when Dean can't accept the bags of the bags under Sam's eyes anymore. On the weekend, they do it both after breakfast and right before heading to bed; on workdays only at the latter opportunity. It might rob Sam of his nightly watch but in turn blesses him with true, genuine sleep. Nightmare-less sleep. Peaceful sleep.

There is no discussion that Dean helps him out of the tub at times, when his legs are too wobbly and relaxed to work properly. He lets Dean towel him down. Strangely enough, it doesn't get him hard. He's too exhausted, too heavy. Every step feels like a workout. Sam has never been this weak.

Dean loves taking care of him. Maybe it always was like that, Sam muses, but only now he can let it happen. They broke in front of each other and have nothing to hide. (He does, still, but that is a consistent part of his being by now.) This is how far he had to fall to accept being pampered. Maybe this is another reason why his body doesn't blow his cover. He is an adult. His brain knows the difference between a caring and a sexual touch. Maybe his body caught on.

Dean's bed is still cool. It feels heavenly against Sam's heated skin, even through the pajamas. "Giant baby," his little brother mumbles while he tucks him in. Sam chuckles. It is a lot like floating, especially on evenings like this, when Dean climbs over and next to him, in his pajamas since a good hour. With the cold comes less enthusiasm over the renovations. Dean barely got anything done this week and Christmas is not even an excuse for that since they are not celebrating it.

His little brother sighs against his neck, his arm draped over Sam's chest, knees pulled up and nudging Sam's hip. He sneaks his arm around that back, slips off the shoulder and finds a neck, hairline, ear. Dean is not a cat but he sure can purr like one.

Sam smiles. "Tell me about Lisa," he whispers. _Speak to me. Speak more. Let me fall asleep to your voice._

Dean's breath smells like mint and lemons. "Her cunt was the best."

It's a delicate pain, more like a stab with an ice sickle. It's in the wrong places. Sam feels light.

"Wettest little thing I've ever had. She'd let me have it whenever I wanted."

Dean whispergroans these words that shake from his lips, a little shy under those harsh words, and Sam can tell. Sam wonders if goosebumps can be felt through clothing.

"She loved giving head. We'd sixty-nine for hours. Jus' me 'n her clit 'n nothing else in the whole wide world." Dean stretches his neck and Sam imagines it being for the sake of his fingers skating further down the skin there. Fingertips rub and Dean hisses a sigh that punches heat low into Sam's guts. "God, do I miss her."

There is no doubt that Sam is completely erect under the covers, that they must tent from where he lies underneath them on his back. But Dean's face is buried in neck and pillows; he can't see. Dean doesn't move an inch from where he's pressed up against Sam.

It feels like one of his best dreams and maybe he'd think it _was_ one if the violent beating of their hearts wasn't this painful in his throat.

Sam can feel sweat under his fingers, how he spreads it over and into Dean's skin and hair. Dean's mouth is a scorching ghost in the nape of his neck.

"Tell me about Jess," Dean breathes.

 

When he closes his eyes, it's easy to imagine Dean in front of him. Sam's never needed magazines or videos to get off. Nothing he would have wanted to see could've taken place outside of his fantasies.

One hand on his cock, the other on his nipple. He teases both as he watches Dean undress in the shadows of his eyelids.

Dean is self-conscious. He would blush from chest to root of hairs, would groan "Do I have to?" and Sam would nod and say "Yes, you do". Dean would love how Sam would give him orders; Sam would make them soft but short. Dean's hard-on would strain the fly of his jeans by the time his sweaty fingers would reach it.

From base to underside of head, a rub of a thumb, firm slide down. Sam hums into the empty room.

Dean's nipples would be like gummy bears between his teeth, not as full as Jess', obviously, but Sam has seen them and they're bigger than his own, at least. Big for a guys'. Sam would chew on them until Dean would be squirming in his lap, unconsciously riding Sam's dick through his pants because he wouldn't be able to sit still. Dean is impatient. Sam always imagined Dean to be needy, always itching for a blowjob or fuck. Sam witnessed Dean's first kisses; the French ones, too. Dean had been a good kisser at age twelve. Sam would kiss Dean until both their tongues were raw.

Dean left for work and Sam still smells the coffee, still feels his baby brother's warmth next to himself. All he has to do is tilt his head just a little and his nose is buried where Dean's head had been resting, leaving sweat and sebum like a bouquet of flowers for Sam; as if he knew, _as if he knew_.

Dean is not gay. It would take time to warm him up to the idea of getting his ass licked. Together, they would learn what a prostate massage feels like. Sam would nip and then bite Dean's rim until Dean would cry and open up, up, up. It would take time, but Dean would be able to be convinced. Dean would let Sam have everything Sam would want to have, and he would _love_ giving it up to him. Dean is a martyr and a hedonist and Sam would make him come until they would both drown in it.

Sam knows that Dean is wounded, that he needs a shoulder to lean on and that Sam is nothing but this - a shoulder. He knows that when Dean lets their skins slide against each other, it's either a coincidence of an adult or the innocence of a child. There is no reservation in Dean, never was. Dean adjusts his junk while they're watching movies, scratches his balls or halfway undresses himself when he can't reach that one damn itching spot on his back. He barks "hey, land me a hand, will ya" and lets Sam touch his silken skin, arches his back like a cat when Sam does well. It's almost a moan, and it's easy to remember it for a later bathroom break.

Dean doesn't know. Dean loves him and doesn't know that Sam loves him too. Love without want is a concept that is not existent for Sam when it comes to the green-eyed serenity that is his brother.

Dean would love to suck Sam's cock. It would make him feel complete. Sam imagines Dean would hold him while Sam would pound into him, weak and desperate just like when they are lying in bed together.

Sam's eyes roll back. His abs flutter under the power of his orgasm, roll softly while they are being splattered warm and milky-white. Sam pants, wrings the last drops out, lets his breath escape him, relaxes with it.

If there is anything in this world that still has a value for him, it is Dean's unburdened smile.

 

On Dean's birthday, Sam feels less uncomfortable among foreign faces than he had dreaded. Dean stocked up on drinks for the guests but neither of them will address how cup after cup ends up in Dean's mouth. But Dean is happy. Beaming, even. While he puts up with small talk with a rather nice couple, Sam can't help but let his gaze slip over to his little brother more often than not. His laughter is loud and genuine. His buddies surround him and he looks _right_ where he is.

They end up shooting leftover fireworks into the night sky and Dean cheers indignantly over each and every single one of them. When Dean flips his head to look at Sam, those eyes are so young that Sam needs a couple of tries to get the air back into his throat. A wide mouth, full of laughter. Kid brother. Baby.

Sam can hear them fuck all the way downstairs where he is lying on the faithful couch, eyes wide and stomach twisted into a painful knot while his hand works furiously. The girl is shameless and loud in her drunkenness, just like Dean. Bedposts slam against wall and Sam swallows over the lump in his throat. Dean groans, almost yells. He's definitely having a good birthday. Sam wonders if this might be the first fuck for Dean since Sam moved in.

In the morning, when he hears movement upstairs, Sam gets up to prepare coffee for everyone. They don't come down straight away though and Sam listens to them getting it on in the shower, the bed, shower again. They join the breakfast table at half past twelve AM and Sam welcomes them with a wide smile.

Her name is Lauren and she eats a bowl of cereal that mostly consists of sliced apple. Before she presses a kiss to Dean's cheek, she announces that she better gets going.

"Nice party," Sam says after the prominent closing of the front door.

Dean nods with a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Sam snickers as half a toast gets stuffed in there, too, and raises his eyebrows in curiosity when Dean pulls out his phone.

A few presses of buttons and the display is held out for Sam to see.

Sam recoils, quickly faces the other way. "DUDE." He can hear Dean's muffled laughter even through all that food. "Did she know you took her picture?!"

A swallow, grin. "'S that matter?"

"Yes!" Sam hisses. It's tricky to on the one hand not think too much about the sight of Dean's dick wedged inside a mouth and on the other hand remember it very good and detailed for later use. "That's a dick move. Poor girl."

Dean closes his phone, shoves it back into his pocket. Another fork of eggs. "Geez, chill. She knew it was a one-time thing anyway."

Sam squints. "Yeah. 'One' time."

Dean looks up from his plate for a beat, then back down. "Y'know what I mean."

Dean continues eating and Sam pretends to watch the garden when he really is watching Dean. It's all a bit too much stimulation right now, in various departments. Sam exhales loudly through his nose, rubs his elbow he had placed on the tabletop. "Don't you, uh. Aren't you looking for a girlfriend?"

Coffee. "Not really."

Sam frowns. "Is it still because…?"

"No," Dean says.

Sam leans back in his chair. "Just askin'." He rubs his shoulder while Dean polishes off the remains of his breakfast. "If it's because, uh. Because I am here, then-"

"Sam, I'm a big boy, okay?"

Sam's mouth claps shut. His gaze is pinned somewhere out of the window.

"If I want a girl, I get a girl. If I want a wife, I'll get one. It's _my_ dick, an' if you don't mind, I'll worry about where it goes _myself_."

Sam shrugs. "Okay, man."

"Who are you, my mother? Seriously." Dean gets up with his dishes in his hands and a mean smirk on his mouth, kicks for a shin that doesn't recoil. Sam grits his teeth and Dean nudges his cheek with his elbow. "Don't worry, mommy. Baby boy is aaaall good."

Sam's leg throbs.


	5. Chapter 5

They did a great job on the guestroom floor, as far as Sam can judge that. The naked light from above makes the polished surface shine like a mirror. Dean decided it would be best to build the bed right inside the room. There's enough space due to the otherwise lacking furniture and they meticulously covered the floor with thick felt. They are both sweating from arranging the pieces like Dean knows it has to be done, and Sam can't imagine a better use for a muddy-grey Wednesday.

"That one," Dean huffs, and Sam acts immediately. It looks like they are halfway through, but then again they had been this far two hours ago when Dean had declared that no, it won't work like this, he has to redo this and that piece. Their foreheads almost bump into each other and Sam can practically taste Dean's sweat on his tongue. He can't even remember the last time he wore underwear that lets his dick do anything but be strangled into submission.

Both their bodies shake with the impact of the hammer Dean slams down on the frame. "What shade of blue are _your_ balls in, anyway?"

Sam startles not only from the next hit. "Uh," he very intelligently states.

"No girls." Slam. "Never leaving the house without me." Slam. "No skin mags, no YouPorn browser entries."

"Someone's thoroughly," Sam chuckles under his breath.

Slam. "Do you even get yourself off? I never fuckin' _hear_ you."

He swallows.

"Not like I want to. But _shit_ , dude." Dean sits back on his haunches, runs his hands over the joined pieces. When Sam dares to peek up through his drenched bangs, Dean's eyebrow is cocked and his eyes squinted. "Should I be worried?"

Sam's eyes slide back down to where his hands are. Not Dean's crotch. Not Dean's nipples standing straight under his Henley shirt. "I'm perfectly fine."

A nasty grunt of a laugh. "Bet if someone as much as breathed into your direction you'd cream yourself."

Heat climbs up his neck faster than he'd like to admit. This is a game to Dean. Only a game. Sam keeps his eyes on his own hands on the wood. He can play along if he figures out the rules. "Well, then huff an' puff, little piggy."

A shocked beat, and maybe that was too much; fuck-

Dean pushes against his shoulder with all his weight and Sam's back hits the floor along with the back of his head. No concussion could black out the hotsweatydenim weight of Dean's ass right on his cock, though.

Sam stares at a spot on the wall with wide eyes, his brother a mere silhouette on top of him, gloved hands rough on his chest, pinning him down. This feels a horrible lot like their premature sparring sessions.

A solid second of hesitation, of shock, maybe (he must feel it he must feel it there is no _way_ that he doesn't feel it), and then Dean's breath is exploding from him with a triumphal, "Ha!"

Those hips grind down in perfect, tight eight-figures - once, twice - and Sam clenches every muscle in his body in order not to come.

Those hands lift off of him and Dean sits back, still on top of him, jeans-clad ass weighing down with full force on Sam's throbbing dick.

Sam watches his brother's unbroken smirk, the sweat on his forehead, the tiny bits of woodchips caught in his arm hair. Under where he has crossed his arms over it, Dean's chest is heaving with his breath.

Sam has never been this mortified and aroused in his entire life.

"Knew it," he hears.

Dean climbs off of him in an elegant twist.

Sam remains lying on his back, chest rippling, cheeks splotched pink and white. He blinks rapidly and gets up and back to work when Dean continues giving instructions about the bedframe. His heart is beating up to his nostrils, panic wide and ugly in his blood, but both of them ignore it. It's part of the game - humiliating Sam. Dean did that at times. It's nothing new. Calm down. Calm down. Dean expected this. Dean has an explanation for it, and it is far enough off the truth to let Sam breathe.

After they finished most of the bed, they shower separately, then cook and eat together as if nothing's happened. It terrifies Sam as much as it excites him. Can he really get through with this much? Is Dean _this_ carefree? They have always been close. Dean has always been carefree. It means nothing. Calm down.

"Sorry about earlier," says Dean in front of the TV with his legs splayed over Sam's.

Sam turns to face his little brother who is chewing halfway on an apple and halfway on his own knuckles.

A baby frown. "Made me worry there for a second. Pale as a ghost."

Sam bobs his eyebrows up his forehead, then lets them sink into a frown, back into relaxation. He faces the TV again. His hands are still kneading Dean's foot.

"Sorry, man." A pat on his shoulder. "I went too far. Sorry."

He rubs his thumb down the heel of Dean's foot. "You have a weird sense of humor sometimes," he sighs. Sam feels his brother's smile on him. He knows Dean adores his dimples and no matter if Dean wants it or not, he's getting them every single time. "It was me who provoked you. So don't worry."

"You do that a lot?" Dean wriggles his toes in Sam's hand. "Provoking people into sitting on your dick?"

Sam smiles. That word from Dean's lips sounds like revelation to him. "Not as often as I used to."

"Comes with the age, huh."

"Shut up, Dean." They laugh and grin because this is what they do, who they are. Sam knows that and respects that and in this very moment, he is more grateful than ever to have it.

Dean doesn't bathe Sam anymore because Sam is better now. Instead, they converted to brushing their teeth together. Sam drinks in the pursed wrinkles of those lips, the sound when Dean spits and how his chin drops with clear water before he dries himself off. They go to bed and Dean is just as warm as Sam.

"Night."

"Night."

Sam turns to face the wall. It's been too much today. He fears that if he stares at Dean tonight, he might do something reckless.

Covers rustle. A warm body fits itself against Sam's back.

Sam presses a sigh down to a long, thin exhale.

In the security of the little spoon's position, he can wait another half an hour before Dean is deep asleep. Sam brings himself to climax inside of his sweatpants with as much as two gentle strokes of his hand under Dean's gentle breath against his skin.

He has never done this, not like this. When it's over, he feels terrible. What was he thinking? Dean could wake up. He could smell it, could read it in Sam's _eyes_ , for God's sake. He can blame spunk in his pants on a wet dream, but not at his age, not while his brother is wrapped around him, not five minutes after going to bed. Dean does not wake up but that doesn't make it any better.

So many years. It had worked for so many years and those few new months now, too. Five months. They're together again since five months and Sam will not break after five lousy months. Not ever. He has to get back on his tracks.

Dean's jeans are riding heartbreakingly low on his ass when he crouches in front of the bedframe like that, knees spread so wide that Sam thinks about grabbing the hammer and smashing it on his own foot to take his mind off of it. "It's beautiful," Sam croaks.

"Yeah, isn't it." Dean's bare hands are the most beautiful thing about this picture when he runs them over the smooth surface of the finished bedframe. Now it only needs a mattress and Sam will have his own bed to sleep in. The thought makes him want to peel his skin off. "You did a great job, Sam."

"It was you," Sam mutters, steps closer, kneels down. He drapes himself over Dean's back because Dean lets him, sneaks his arms around that creased belly to press them close. "You built it. It's yours."

Dean's hand pets his head and Sam never wanted to cry so badly in weeks. "Aw. My cute lil' boy."

 

 

He can't stay forever. He _knows_ but doesn't want to hear it, think it. The world is so nice like it is - immobile and filled with everything he needs (Dean and food and Dean and books and Dean Dean Dean). After almost overdosing on caffeine-Adderall for the final stages of his title, it looks like a bad joke to throw it all out of the window like he is doing it right now. But what is there to it, really? What is there to chase? Jess is gone. Dad is gone. There is no back nor forth, no future he can look forward to, no past he can dread being caught up by. All he has is Dean. Dean and this house.

Both of them know what a panic attack feels like. Sam hasn't had one since Stanford. Dean is away at work so all Sam can do is breathe, let go, breathe, let go. He can't move, is shaking, pouring sweat. It is terrifying and when Dean finally returns and finds him on the floor, his first reaction is to kneel down and put Sam's head into his lap. Sam mutters nonsense about "please" and Dean's hands just cradle him, brush his hair behind his ears, out of his face.

"Oh, what am I supposed to do with you," hums Dean. He says it like a mother would do, soft and wise.

Sam sobs into these hands and these jeans as if they were Mary's.

 

 

Dean fidgets with the covers when he proposes, "Maybe you should talk to someone about it."

Someone. Someone who's not Dean. Someone who knows what to do in a situation like Sam's. A doctor. A _shrink_. "Yeah, sure," he snorts, "You go first."

"Hey, I'm not the one drooling all over the kitchen tiles."

"And I'm not the one running to a goddamn _quack_ , Dean!"

"Woah, geez; whatever!"

Sam rolls on his side, facing away from Dean. He frowns, rolls the amulet between his fingers. It usually calms him down; a tiny ritual he's been holding on to ever since. No. Therapy is out of the question. The mere thought of having to talk about those things he keeps locked up good makes Sam want to gut himself. Not with a stranger. Not with anyone. Sam knows very well that he is weak, that he lets it show and that it weighs down on his little brother. Dean is the last person on earth Sam wants to be a burden to and yet, here they are.

Behind him, Dean sighs. Sam hears a hand drop to the pillows. "I simply... I mean, there's obviously something goin' on with you. And you're not talkin' to _me_ , so...!"

Deeper frown. Something tells him to be alert. "We've talked about everything." About Jess and Dad and your drinking and Lisa and Ben and Stanford and simply _everything_.

"Yeah, except about _us_."

Bam - nothing - nothing. Panic.

Blank panic.

Not now.

Sam can barely hear Dean's nervous sigh. "It's, uh, I know it's... of no use if we talk about it with each other, maybe, so..."

He is an archery bow on highest elongation. His eyes are wide open but he can't see a thing. "... What do you mean?"

"Well, you're obviously _mad_ at me," Dean mutters.

No "the way you stare at me, 'cause I _can_ see it", no "you know" and ashamed eyes. Air has never been this life-giving. Dean has no clue.

He can turn around. He can look into this face and see his tiny boy, lips a worried pout and brows a deep crease and Dean probably has no idea how devastated he looks like. _And Sam's heart aches_. "Why on earth would I be mad at you?" he breathes.

Those eyes are his for a second before they flee again, far away and gone and where only Dean himself can see. "Must've been me. Somethin' I did. But can't figure out what it was. Been thinkin' about it ever since you left." Those fingers peel at loose skin. Dean is propped up on his elbow and looks like a doll with his lashes lowered like this. "So, if I'm not the one you wanna talk about it with, then I get it."

"Dean," Sam breathes.

That hair is soft against his cheek, warm under his hands. Dean lets himself being tucked in against Sam's chest, hand close to his mouth as if he was about to nibble on his fingers. His little brother could fight this and normally _would_ fight it. The fact that he doesn't pulls heavily on the seams of Sam's heart. There is a long way to go before Dean lets himself be pampered and Sam seems to have pushed him down every last mile. And Dean doesn't even know. He doesn't even _know_.

"Oh, Dean."

Dean's hair could as well be feathers when Sam presses his lips into them. Here, he remembers how he came up with that certain nickname.

Dean is the warmth of the first spring sun on bare skin. Dean is water after a drought. Dean is the ache in Sam's heart when his soul won't fit inside of it anymore.

And Sam left. He knew this would happen, dreaded it but in the end had to let it become the price Dean had to pay in all of it; another ounce of agony on Sam's rotten soul. Sam _had_ to leave, _had_ to do it without warning, without chance to be made soft by doe eyes and wet lashes, _had_ to push away and lock up and don't ever look back or he knew he'd break. A million moments were spent lingering over phones, over a rental car ads, over bus or train or plane tickets. Sam dreamed of his little brother's despair both days and nights, saw tears and fists and blood and terrible decisions all while knowing there was no way to help, to make it better, not even a little. It had been worse than the fact of being apart from Dean by itself. But there had been no other way. It wouldn't have worked. It was the only way to keep Dean safe.

Of course Dean would make up stories as to why Sam left. Of course Dean would search all of the faults within himself. His little brother's mind works like that.

But Sam broke, didn't he? Broke when the phone call came, when they said their condolences, when he was told the car blew up with her still inside, wedged between metal and glass with no way out. She had been everything that had kept him alive (and maybe even happy). Burying her had meant burying himself along with her.

It had only been this, and he broke. There had not been another way but to return to his brother. (Maybe a single one... but he had been too much of a coward to go through with that. Concerning Dean's well-being, it might have been the only thing even worse than giving in to the monster.) Sam had snapped like a twig, unable to take any more, after being strained and bent by homesickness and worries for so long. Peace. He was nor is not even asking for happiness, really. Just peace. Peace would be a nice thing to have. And he thought that if he went to see Dean again, it would bring him a little bit of that. Seeing Dean happy and guns blazing with a bright smile in his face and a pretty girl in his arms - _moved on_ \- that would have done it for Sam. It would have been enough.

But now, after all those months, he has to come to the conclusion that Dean had tried, just like Sam had tried himself - another life, a _new_ life; no looking back. And just like Dad's death or a thought back to roads and shotgun shells, it only seems to take a snap of fingers to be pulled right back into old, muddy waters. And just like the departure of a partner whose comfort you thought you could count on for the rest of your life, the future can fade into nothing but a blank, straight line at the brim of the horizon.

"Dean." He says it a hundred times. "Dean." A million. It can never be enough. "You never did anything wrong," Sam whispers without spending a single thought on whether Dean is asleep or not, if he is heard, if Dean understands him.

There are no tears against him. He kisses that head, over and over, holds it, cradles just like he has been cradled, had been cradling. If they could remain like this forever, Sam would have no wishes left.

They fall asleep with the feeling of each other's hearts on their tongues.

 

 

The morning light is harsh. Icy and grey and it could as well be coming from a fluorescent tube. Sam wakes up to the clear taste of change.

Last night, something changed. Between Dean addressing it and Sam tearing to pieces over his little brother's fairytale on Sam's coward escape, between kissing Dean's tired head and Sam putting love into every call of his name, something changed.

It feels like it is out there. As if he said it. As if Dean knows.

Strangely enough, Sam is unable to feel panic. There is emptiness with a bittersweet pull into the only direction Sam knows - towards Dean.

Sam gets out of bed, down the corridor, the stairs. He comes to a halt in front of the kitchen.

Dean turns to face him over the coffee machine, and he is beautiful. These soft creases on his little brother's forehead would usually tear Sam's insides apart but all it does to him now is sweeten this gravity.

"Hey," Sam tries.

Dean doesn't answer.

He walks until they're next to each other, warm arm against belly, Sam so deep inside Dean's space that he can make out the soft shaking to those fingers. Dean's head is lowered along with his eyes but the closer Sam comes, the slower his hands move.

Sam doesn't know what did it. Maybe his lips on that hair, maybe the twentieth repetition of that name with all that heartbreak on Sam's tongue - that filthy beast that coats itself in sugar. It's out, somehow, climbed out from inside of Sam. Sam can feel its presence hovering above them, between them. And still, there is nothing upsetting. Sam doesn't understand while that terrible voice in his head keeps lulling about "see? I told you". He doesn't feel the need to shut it out, maybe even couldn't with how much space there is inside of him where it could flee to. It's of no use.

Sam watches those lips part, those lashes flutter, blink. Dean is showered and prepared for a day he doesn't seem to be ready for. That breathing quickens. There's another one, Sam can _hear_ it, but it doesn't occur to him that it could be his own. It seems way too close to Dean's skin.

He wants to ask, "Are you scared?" but he knows the answer anyway. If he was Dean, he would be. But Dean is here, here, right next to him, not nearly as taut and alert as he should be, what Sam imagined it to be like for them to be this close in such a heavy silence.

Dean's body softly sways to the left, against Sam's. It's barely a movement, really, but it happens.

Sam's forehead rests against Dean's temple. Eyes swim, stay lowered, but that face turns, until their noses bump against each other and Sam smells skin.

Dean is the moment before unlocking a door, before shooting a gun, before jumping a ledge.

A press of lips, nothing more, nothing less.

There's soft gasping and maybe it's both of theirs.

They crash.

Lips give and give in hesitant pressure and they're still not close enough, it _is_ not enough; and it's _Dean_ when their mouths slide, _Dean_ when Sam whines from deep down his chest, _Dean_ when Dean's eyes shoot open and look straight into Sam's.

And then it's Dean who turns away, cranes his neck until Sam's mouth can't reach anything, Dean whose back heaves with his breathing, whose pulse beats motion into the vein in his neck.

Sam breaches himself with his arm against the counter, head low, Dean nowhere he can see, feel, smell. Sam listens to the water running through the machine's filter, to quick steps through the corridor, the front door; nods to the sound of the Impala's engine.

Long after the coffee is done, Sam has yet to form a thought. In contrast to earlier, his headspace now seems to be only half of an inch wide. Nothing fits. Eventually, he walks over to the table, pulls out a chair, sits down. What he is doing cannot be called "waiting" since he is not consciously doing it. He is simply sitting there in silence until Dean gets back. Dean _has_ to get back eventually. This is his home, after all. All his stuff is here. He wouldn't leave all of his belongings behind like that; those picture albums with Lisa's photographs in them. He'll come back. He has to come back.

Baby's faraway roar is the first sound Sam accepts again. It's almost six. Dean took his time. (Maybe had considered staying at someone else's place before giving up.) Sam looks over into the corridor. There is not much that he can see from this angle, but every tiny piece is sufficient. Noise of steps, keys, entering, paper bags. Dean went grocery shopping.

Rustling, steps, silence. Sam sees Dean before Dean sees Sam, because Sam knows Dean will come this way and because Dean didn't expect Sam to sit here. That jolt going through Dean when he notices Sam sitting at the table validates this idea.

A quick glance before those eyes are gone again, stuck to the tips of Dean's shoes. Those shoulders tense, that jaw tightens. Dean keeps his head lowered as he strides towards the counter. As soon as the bags are put down, he turns on his heels to leave the room.

Please don't. "De-"

"No!" Dean barks, steps, no, _stomps_ his way out of the room, up the stairs.

Sam rises from his seat.

Dean heard it. "No, Sam! Not now!"

After the hours-long complete immobility, his joints feel wobbly. The first steps are uneasy. "Dean, please. Let's talk about it."

"NO! Not NOW!"

At the foot of the stairs, Sam hears the bathroom door from upstairs slam shut. There's the turning of a key. His heart beats throbbing agony into his skull as he makes his way upstairs, down the corridor, in front of that door. He leans in to rest his forehead against it, to calm himself and to get rid of the shaking of his muscles. Behind this barrier, Dean rips his clothes off of himself, chucks them on the tiles under bit-back breaths and hisses. Sam needs to be in there. He needs to explain, needs to help. He can't let Dean go through this by himself. When the water starts up, Sam goes to find something he can use as a picklock. Once he is back in front of the door, it opens for him in a matter of seconds. Like riding a bike.

The room is already starting to fog up from a too-hot shower. Dean heard him enter and hisses muffled curses, maybe hears Sam undress, maybe doesn't - but he doesn't run, doesn't yell. Sam's tongue feels shriveled from dehydration.

When Sam pulls the shower curtain back and climbs in next to him, Dean almost slips with how violently he turns around. Sam doesn't know how he looks like, if he deserves those wide eyes full of shock. It's easy to grab those flailing wrists, to block that knee and that fight. He gets another, "NO!" a, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Dean is a shy animal with its foot stuck in a bear trap.

Sam holds him pinned through the next and last tries to break free. Despair drapes itself over rage and Dean's yells eventually stop coming. Muscles and tendons soften in Sam's grip. His eyes don't leave his brother's face for a single second. Those greens are averted to an unseen spot on the bathtub's edge.

Dean's head droops along with his shoulders. When he speaks, his voice is almost too soft to be heard over the rushing of the shower. "Why can't we just… just… let it be? We always do that."

 _Because we're past that_ , Sam thinks. I _am past that_. He lets go of Dean's wrists and they don't take the chance to push him away. They just flop down to Dean's sides, helpless and limp like his entire little brother.

It's feather-soft when Sam lets his fingers run up Dean's arms, over his shoulders and up his neck, when he pushes both hands into Dean's hair to cradle his head by the edges of his jaw. Dean still looks down and away. There still isn't a single bit of fight in him.

Sam lets their foreheads rest against each other. Here, he closes his eyes. Here, he can breathe. Here.

"We always do that," Dean mutters, and Sam can feel the air of those words hitting his lips. "Ignore 'n not talk. When we... when we don't feel like it. Can't we just do that?"

Sam kisses him because no, they can't. No, Sam needs to. No, there is no undoing this.

There has never been anything like this - Dean's mouth, soft and pliant and shuddering under Sam's. It is nothing like kissing, nothing like Sam knows, beyond everything he dreamed of. He kisses him long and gentle because he needs to. He had kissed him before without actually _kissing_ him, but with words and calculated touches, with simply being there and listening and nodding. But this, this is what it was all along; the real thing. Sam feels his throat seize up with the force of his emotions.

It physically hurts Sam to let go of that mouth, so he doesn't. A tilt of head brings them closer, even more perfect against each other.

Dean feels like silk and water. Dean tastes like stomach acids and salt.

Dean's breath is a stutter in Sam's hands, that little inch of a turn into a direction Sam is not at the sweetest ache. There's a hitch of voice, still no hands, no tension but in that neck that doesn't go far in Sam's cotton hands.

Sam kisses a corner of mouth, side of lips. The rise and fall of Dean's chest is starting to quicken. Dean's skin under his lips is Sam's death wish and answer to every prayer.

Dean's lashes flutter with a breathy noise from the back of his throat.

They kiss again and Dean's mouth is hesitant at first where it's parting wider and softer the more insistent Sam's is pressing down on it. Sam's head is spinning. This could be a dream, one of the better ones, but he knows it's real and somehow that turns everything a little bitter, sends Sam's hands shaking with more than adoration. With Dean still on his mouth, he exhales sharply through his nose and it comes out as a grunt instead of a sigh. Sam becomes aware now of the hitched hold of his shoulders, of the burning in his back and his legs. He is exhausted. He is breaking again. But not yet. Not yet. Now, he has Dean, and Dean lets him, God knows why and how, but _he lets him_. The thought won't leave his mind and keeps him upright.

Here, Dean's hands slide up and into Sam's hair. Sam stills immediately, shakes and shakes apart. It's a soft brush of fingers through soaked hair, not a rip, not even a tug, light and the question if this is okay is almost palpable. It's so Dean but yet so new and wonderful. Dean's lashes drag against Sam's cheek since they are so close, so close, and Dean is holding Sam's head too, lets himself be kissed, is, is-

Mouths part and Sam has to catch his breath without an idea where it went. His weight is slamming back into his body. Their foreheads are weighing down against each other, both heads heavy, and maybe Dean is just as breathless as him. They sway where they stand, water drowning them blistering-hot.

This is happening. It's real and it is happening. Sam's sob punches his empty stomach back into the depths of his belly.

"I- I don't get you!" Dean sounds raw, too fragile and too unsteady. Sam wraps his arms around his brother despite the nakedness, despite the fact that his dick is probably digging hard into the dip of Dean's hip. It doesn't matter because this here is real.

And Dean gasps; a sound like a scared animal. They never touched like this, not naked and without some polite inches between their lower bodies, not since they were really really little and Sam wouldn't blame Dean for not remembering it. But his hands slip under and around and he's holding Sam right back.

Sam feels that heartbeat race against his chest, Dean's thin breath and how it makes their skins slide involuntarily in the rhythm of the heaves. It feels too good, too perfect, but what could have prepared Sam for this? It's too much, just too much. Tears are swelling up behind Sam's closed eyelids.

Dean is trees swaying in the summer winds. Dean is climbing into bed after a night with rock salt and gasoline.

Dean lets him hold on as long as he needs to and avoids Sam's sight completely when it's finally time, tries to fit a few inches between them that Sam lets him have. Sam leaves his hands on those shoulders, ducks to find eye contact. Dean makes a face. It's hard to tell if his head is red from the hot water or for other reasons. That troubled frown always makes Sam feel the need to smile, to make Dean smile in return. He softly squeezes Dean's shoulders before he lets his hands slide off, reaches out for the body wash. He squirts some into his palm and lathers it up. They are both ignoring the soft kiss the tip of his dick gives against Dean's stomach despite the distance. "Like we used to," he explains in a careful whisper, "When we were kids." He holds his hands up.

Chest, shoulders, neck, hair. The water and soap turns Dean's body slippery where it's a miracle of muscle and skin anyway under Sam's hands. Dean trembles like a pile of leaves underneath him and Sam tries not to dwell too long, to turn this too sexual. He doesn't have to look down to know that in contrast to him, Dean is not the tiniest bit aroused.

"Done," Dean decides before all lather is gone, and Sam lets him get out while he quickly washes himself. They towel themselves dry in a strange silence. Dean is without a doubt in shock with how he is stumbling like a newborn deer. Sam's hair is still dripping but he has to follow immediately when Dean leaves for the bedroom. From behind, Sam's eyes rest on the white-knuckled grip on the towel around Dean's waist, the lobster-red of his skin where the water had poured down on him.

In front of the wardrobe, Dean snaps, turns around and pulls his free hand up as a barrier. Sam bumps right into it. "Dude, I- Private space?!"

Dean looks too young again, too shy and uncertain for how Sam knows his brother can be like with others.

Sam takes a step back. "Sorry."

An unsteady snort, almost a sigh, nothing concrete and nothing like Dean. Sam doesn't know his little brother like this. This is all new and even newer for Dean who didn't fantasize about these things happening in advance.

"Please leave me alone." Dean holds on to his towel for dear life, even with Sam so far away, out of reach. Scared.

"No," Sam mutters.

Frustration, jumps of muscles. "I- Sam, I- I just wanna get fuckin' _dressed_ here, if you don't mind!"

"You're gonna lock yourself in."

Silence.

"You're not alone in this," Sam says. His voice feels thin.

Dean stares at the ground in front of the wardrobe and won't move. Sam's heart aches. This is exactly what he feared. No pleasure in the world is worth turning his brother into this.

When Sam takes a tiny step forward again, Dean visibly flinches. Sam moves cautiously as he pulls a t-shirt from the wardrobe. He hands it over to a hesitant brother.

Eventually, Dean lets go of his towel to pull the tee over his head.

Sam goes to his knees for the underwear drawer, hands Dean a pair of shorts and remains facing the wardrobe's interior while Dean puts them on behind him. He hears the towel drop to the floor, the shuffling of fabric and elastic. Dean is a shy animal that needs a lot of patience.

"Sweatpants," Sam hears.

He pulls them out, hands them over his shoulder. Dean sniffles while he pulls them up his legs.

After a slow counting to ten, Sam dares to get up to his feet again. His hair is still wet, the towel around his hips still the only piece of clothing. Sam knows he is intimidating by height alone. Nakedness can be seen as weakness, as in being bare and helpless, but to Dean it must look like a threat, especially with the vivid image of Sam's (now finally deflated) erection. His little arsenal of clothes is still in his bag under his side of the bed, so he turns to retrieve them. In the corners of his eyes, Dean stands in the middle of the room with helplessness written all over himself.

While Sam dresses, he feels eyes on himself. Their burn tingles in his nerves, but it's not the kind of curiosity he would be crazy about. It's important now not to push his boundaries. Dean needs time and Dean needs space. It's a thin line between keeping and losing him right now.

Their eyes meet all the way across the bed. Dean looks a little like this morning again, over the coffee machine. Now, Sam _knows_ that Dean knows, but Dean still doesn't _understand_.

"What are you thinking about right now?" Sam wants to know.

No shrug. "I dunno."

"Are you okay?"

Eyes swim but don't leave. "I dunno what's goin' on, Sam."

It's hard to stand straight under those eyes. Sam looks down and away. He wants to hold Dean and tell him everything will be just fine, that nothing's changed, not really, but even in his own mind the words sound fake.

"I mean… it's like…" Dean throws his hands above his head, ruffles his hair. He makes a few mindless steps without really moving inside of the room. "It's, uh, it kinda. I mean, it makes kind of…" He doesn't finish the sentence.

But Sam knows how it goes. "Sense," he completes under his breath.

Dean groans; a wonderful, terrible sound that tears at Sam's heart, and he lets himself drop on the edge of the bed, buries his head in his hands. Sam watches that back bend, those shoulders flutter. "It's so fucked up," he hears, "So super fucked up, an' I dun… I… It just… Why? Why the fuck? When did we… How?!"

_We._

Sam's head is high on those two simple letters.

He knows he must have walked here, knows Dean must have noticed the movement and then didn't flee, didn't stop Sam from standing still in front of him, kneeling down in front of him, putting his palms over his own hands that are shielding his face from the world.

"I think I'm gonna throw up," sobs Dean.

"Then do," Sam hums.

"All over your damn face."

"Go ahead."

"This sucks. I hate this."

"I know."

"It's so fucked up. It's like someone slipped the rug from underneath my feet an' then slapped me in the face with it."

"Ouch."

A beat. Then, "I'm really fuckin' scared, Sam."

Sam nods. Dean can't see it. "I'm here," he says.

Dean lets himself drop forward until he is draped over Sam, head heavy on Sam's back, arms softly clinging on there as well. Sam hugs him back.

Dean is children's laughter at four AM. Dean is babies 'cries over greasy diner food.

"I'm here," Sam repeats. He pets hair, back, soothes circles with his palms. Dean relaxes under him, over him, as if someone let all air out of him. Sam can old this weight. He was created for this purpose.

Dean starts lifting himself off of him after some time, long enough for Sam to think he has fallen asleep. But he lifts himself, and his eyes are dull from lack of tears, warm and aching like Sam had noticed them on Dad a long time ago. Dean runs his hand around and behind Sam's neck. Again, he sniffles. "It confuses me."

"I can relate."

"Hm."

Sam kisses him. Dean inhales through his nose as if he was relieved that it happened.

"You're weird," Dean mutters before Sam seals his lips again.

Dean sighs through his nose. Sam thinks it might be one of the most wonderful sounds he has ever heard. It happens a few times while they kiss and kiss, every time a little bolder, every time a little sharper. Dean's lips turn wet against Sam's, and at the secret noise of a low groan from deep down that throat, Sam notices that his brother has a hand fisted into his hair. They turn their heads to fit into each other differently and the slide of their mouths is slick-hot. Dean's cheek is warm against his own as that hand drifts over Sam's back. Sam feels his palms pressing up and against Dean's chest, feels his knees drifting across the carpet; closer. It's better than any fever dream.

It's almost an accident when Sam's tongue slips against Dean's lips, teeth, gums, definitely an accident when Dean's mouth parts for it, lets it inside and taste honey-sweet brother, an honest-to-god car crash when Sam hears that shuddering sound. He groans in between their mouths and feels Dean's tiny recoil at that on his jaw where he still holds that face in his hands, but Dean stays, stays and dares the tip of his tongue to stiffen and to graze Sam's, and Sam is so full of bliss that he can't help but suck that muscle right into his mouth. If he choked on it, so be it. And Dean lets him. Dean lets him.

It's absolutely and nothing at all like Sam expected it to be like, to feel and taste like. The sweetness of Dean's participation is something he never could have estimated. It fills so many corners at once in Sam, so many that he lost count of them and whose shapes and places he had forgotten about. Not even his bravest dreams had been even remotely like this reality he is experiencing now. His eyes burn with dry tears, with too much salt and too much pain. So he kisses Dean harder, digs his teeth into a lip and groans over that whimper, over that soft flesh he has watched being licked and kissed and owned by so many others. And now it's his, his to take care of, his to turn into endless shades of redpinkcandyhot. His. Dean's is his. Dean.

The bed creaks when Dean lands on his back on top of it with Sam following immediately, climbing on top of him with his back rounded like a cat, knees digging into the soft beddings and hands bearing most of his weight, fingers combing through never-too-short hair, thumbs sweeping over freckled temples, the hints of a baby stubble. Dean has his eyes closed and pants little soundless symphonies into Sam's mouth, holds on to neck and hair like Sam had always wanted it to be. They're making out. The two of them, together, for real. Sam's heart sighs wide and long.

If Sam dropped his hips to let his dick grind against Dean's, he would come, here and now. But he knows it's too much, that this is not the right time for it, and it doesn't bother him at all. They are both sweating, both panting hard when they eventually start to slow down, when Dean's eyes open up wild and wet and even Sam's lips are throbbing from too much friction. Dean looks nothing like a kid, Sam realizes, but yet his eyes are full of innocence for him. Wonder. Trust. Sam knows his own are brimmed with tears now.

"… Are you alright?" Dean is not supposed to be the one asking this. Sam loves the way that voice turned raw from _his_ tongue.

He coughs a laugh, shakes his head. His hair falls into his eyes, over Dean's forehead.

"Was that bad just now?"

More laugh, more tears. "God, no, not at all. God!"

Dean's fingers skate through his hair. They are so sincere in their doings. Sincere is good. They are not shaking, not hesitating. That is heavenly. "Then why are you crying?" Such a tiny voice though, always such a tiny voice.

"I'm so _happy_ ," Sam sobs.

"I correct," Dean chuckles, "You're _super_ weird."

Sam can't deny that.


	6. Chapter 6

Under Sam's eyes, Dean fixes them dinner. It doesn't feel much different from all the other times before this one. And then, across a heap of cauliflowers, Dean throws him a look. "Doesn't even fuckin' feel different from before, does it," and Sam has to laugh out loud. No, they are still like that. No, there are parts that always were like that, parts that will never change. The thought warms Sam just as much as the food in his stomach.

Neither of them suggests a movie. It's bathroom, brushing teeth, bedroom. Dean lies down immediately, and Sam has to be quick to place a kiss before that face is buried in that pillow completely. Dean's face flushes under Sam's cheeks. "This is so strange," Dean confesses.

"The kissing?"

"Uh, everything? But especially that, yeah."

"Should we stop?" Sam places another and another, just for good measurement.

Dean scrounges his nose and deepens his frown. They both know he can't answer that out loud, and it's alright. Sam lays down next to Dean, only a little closer like they used to. They watch each other over the pillow. Sam brushes a stray strand of hair away from Dean's temple.

"Am I scaring you?" Sam asks.

"A little, maybe," Dean breathes.

"Because I'm like this?"

"Like what?"

"Cause you're scared and I'm not."

Dean thinks for a moment. Then, he decides, "No." Another beat. "You're so weird."

Sam smiles. "Haven't felt this little weird in a very long time, to be honest."

Dean softly nods into the pillow. "You look different," he confirms.

Wider smile. "'Good' different or 'bad' different?"

" _Weird_ different," Dean decides.

"How so?"

"Like you've had too many pain killers. Loose. Dopey grin."

He chuckles. "Feels like me right now, yeah."

"A little like a cartoon character that fell in love," Dean says.

Sam nods.

"… Are you in love with me?"

Sam opens his mouth. There is nothing and everything.

A silence settles in between the two of them until there is no need for an answer anymore.

Dean's eyes become smaller, more distant. Those lashes droop a little.

"I'm so sorry," chokes Sam.

"I don't get you," whispers Dean. "This is all so… I…" He leaves the words hanging in the open.

Sam scoots closer with his attention on Dean's reaction, but even though Dean curls in on himself a little more, he doesn't flinch away. No, he rather curls _closer_ towards Sam. So Sam puts that head on his shoulder, his chest. He kisses that forehead and holds his little brother close.

"I can't remember a single second where I wasn't like this," Sam hums. "Always. It was always like this."

Dean doesn't answer.

"You never did anything for or against it. I think I was born to be like this."

"You're always apologizing," Dean mutters.

"Cause it's my _fault_ ," Sam clarifies.

"But I… I mean, there must've… You must've gotten hope from _somewhere_ , right? We always were really close, weren't we? Maybe that was…"

 _And you're always looking for a way to save me._ "There never was hope," Sam breathes. "Not for me. Not in this."

Silence.

Dean's voice is almost too thin to hear when he speaks again. "You ever talked about it? With anyone?"

Sam shakes his head. His mouth grazes Dean's hairline. "Impossible."

"So... I'm the first?"

A nod.

A moment. "… How's it feel?"

He blinks into Dean's hair, the pillows, the darkness of the room. "Good," Sam lies.

They wake up too close to one another, and Dean bolting away is the first thing Sam is conscious for. He hears the shower run. They switch as soon as Dean is done and when Sam returns to the bedroom to get a new set of clothes, Dean is lying in bed again. On top of the covers, face-down, in fresh clothes. Slumbering.

"… What about work?"

"Fuck off," grunts Dean into the pillow.

Sam dresses with slightly alit cheeks. Dean is too upset to go to work, and it's Sam's fault. All of this shook Dean heavily enough to have such an impact on him. There is shame and then again shame about the fact that he is kind of proud. In sweatpants and nothing else, Sam climbs on top of the bed, next to Dean, kisses behind his ear. He dwells in the fresh scent of shampoo, the cool slick of wet hair. "You're too good to me."

"Ain't for you, jackass. Didn't take a single day off since I started at that place."

"Okay." Sam smiles.

He wants to do a million things. A whole day. They have a whole day. _Sam_ has a whole day. Dean trusts him and Dean is warm where Sam runs his palm over his cotton-clad back. At the touch, Dean shudders a bit and squirms away with a tired groan. "Mmmpf, dude…!"

"Not like that," Sam promises. He's got a whole day. When he spreads his fingers, it covers almost half of the width of Dean's upper back. "Care for a massage, sir?"

Another "mmmh", but amused this time.

"Beauty and spa day, sir," Sam muses as he brings his leg over Dean to straddle the small of his back. Both hands are big enough to touch every inch here. Dean is lean muscle in the middle, a little softer farther up or down. Sam loves the way his hands look on this body, how his hard cock safely hovers over Dean's spine in the confinement of his sweatpants, without touching, without Dean knowing, just there and perfect.

He rubs and he presses and Dean sighs loudly for it. That generous bubble butt pops up a little higher against Sam's own flatter one, against his balls, and if Sam was completely insane he'd scoot a little lower to let them ride on Dean's tailbone. Dean feels like paradise under his hands. He digs the heels of his hands deeper, earns shudders and encouragements. If this goes on, Sam will run out of clean sweatpants in no time.

"Lose the shirt?" It's not a command as much as it is a question, because this is still new and Sam actually means it when he says "not like that". Dean should know that "that" is not all this is about for Sam, about them. They're still them. Dean can still say "no" anytime and Sam will always respect that.

Dean grunts but eventually complies. Sam helps him out of the white cotton and gasps silently at the endless valley of skin that unfolds in front of him now. It's a galaxy of freckles from one round shoulder to the other, up a strong neck and down a spine, a little lighter in the middle and then the idea of another small but similar field underneath the hem of Dean's pants. Sam presses both thumbs where he can't resist those deep dimples, and Dean tilts his hips even deeper. "Hurts here, doesn't it?" Dean makes a sorry sound. "Yeah. Intervertebral discs and heavy lifting are a difficult match."

"So professional, Sammy."

"Multi-talented. Will bail you out of jail and then re-set your vertebras." He smiles as he eases his thumbs along the line of Dean's spine, just on the outsides of it. That skin and fat folds into adorable rolls under the pressured push.

"Sounds like a good business model to me."

"Please shut your trap while the master is at work."

"Bitch."

"Don't make me."

"Heh."

Dean's skin has always been soft, at least according to Sam's memories. There have always been scars, too, many of them. Dean has always been eager to make Dad proud. He'd try to jump higher, bigger, better than anyone else. There are a few that Sam doesn't recognize; heavy and bold. Middle teenage- to early adulthood, half with Dad, half without. If all of these were earned under Dad, maybe it wouldn't exactly surprise Sam.

Every single one. He wants to know the story to every single one of them. Sam bows down until he can kiss the faint remains of Greensboro, North Carolina, window-shattering shockwave of a spell.

Dean jolts. "Dude!"

"It's only a kiss."

"Eh, _duh_ , but- You mind turning it down a little? Please?"

"Okay." He rubs his warmed-up palm in tight circles over the spot until it forgot how his lips felt like. "Sorry."

"It's all goin' a little fuckin' fast right now."

 _Not for me_. "I'm sorry."

"It's- I mean, alright, you know? I get it. But. But just…"

"Slower," Sam completes.

"Yeah." Dean sighs deeply. "One crazy shit after another."

"Sure." Circles, lines, inwards to outwards. Dean relaxes again. Sam hesitates, then speaks. "I... I don't want to rush you. We don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

"Wow, geez," Dean grunts. " _Thanks_."

Sam makes a face. This is not the time where he can stand sarcasm. But it's Dean, and Dean will get what Dean wants. That's the most important thing.

After the massage, Sam excuses himself for a run which is more of a gift of solitude for Dean than it is a gift to Sam's fitness. Space. Space is important. Back at home, Dean prepared breakfast and left some of it for Sam. He hears him upstairs in the second guest room and proceeds to eat alone. When he offers his help, Dean declines without looking at him. Sam nods to himself and buries himself in books. All this is a bitter medicine to swallow; he should know best. He can only offer and then give whatever Dean chooses to accept.

It's way past midday and Dean hasn't come down yet. Sam fixes him a sandwich that he delivers to the doorstep. The entire room smells like rotten wood and sweat. Dean's t-shirt is drenched and he takes the plate with a low "thanks".

 _You can't outrun it, you know_ , Sam thinks. "How's it going?" he asks.

"Slow," Dean grunts through sliced ham and bread. "Have to replace more than I thought. Damn rotting pipes. Fuckin' drenched everything."

He peeks deeper into the room. A giant hole eats up most of the eastern wall. "Shit."

"Uh-huh."

"But you're gonna get it done, right?"

Dean glares up at him. "Course I will!"

"Oh, uh, I, I didn't mean it like that. Sorry."

"Sure," Dean spits. The plate is being pressed back into his hands, empty. His brother turns back to work.

After contemplating saying something, Sam heads back downstairs.

When they see each other again, it's already dark outside. Sam looks up from his book. In the doorframe, Dean looks too pale. He still hasn't showered and Sam can smell him all the way across the room.

"Dee," Sam sighs.

"I'm sorry for bein' such an asshole."

He puts his book away and sits up. "It's alright." He starts walking towards Dean who doesn't make a move.

"No," Dean says. "It's not alright. And I'm sorry."

"Okay," Sam breathes. In front of him, Dean avoids his eyes. That face doesn't turn away from his hand. Dean's skin is sticky from sweat and dust. "You look terrible."

"I'm really tired," Dean chokes.

"Are you hungry? Do you need anything?"

Dean shakes his head. "Bath."

"You want to take a bath?"

A nod.

"Should I help you?"

"Alright. Okay. Let's get you upstairs, alright?"

"Yeah."

Dean is a heavy weight. He can barely lift his legs. It's a miracle to Sam how he even made it downstairs in the first place. He simply could have started his bath on his own, that would have been easier and faster. But he came to Sam to ask for help. He needs Sam right now. Sam understands.

Dean likes the pine-scented bubble bath from the black plastic bottle. It's marketed to a stereotypical masculine audience but Sam knows that most of all, Dean chose to buy it because Bobby used to have a very similar one - back during the first years, when his bathtub was still suitable for people to actually take a bath in it. Sam starts the water and pours a generous cap of green into the bellowing stream. Dean remains leaning against the doorframe, his eyes fixated on the blooming foam.

A few steps is all it takes to feel that body underneath Sam's fingertips. "C'mere," he soothes, and Dean follows his hands like an old shadow. There is no effort to pull his clothes from himself, so Sam puts gentle pulls on the hem of that shirt. A tired huff, a nod, and arms start to raise. Sam pulls the shirt over his brother's head and lets the heavy smell run him over. He doesn't have to hide his shudder anymore, does he. "Pants, too," he prompts. His fingers are already on that belt buckle.

Dean's tiny hips are marvelous. Sam stares at the defined wings of hip bones, the concave of a belly button, the fine line of an almost strawberry-blonde treasure trail. Dean's nipples are soft, his eyelids lowered. He's looking at a spot somewhere behind Sam's shoulder.

A tiny step, almost barely a swing, and Sam's mouth is able to feel heat of skin without touching. He knows his sweatpants are bulging again and that the hot water fog has nothing to do with his sweating.

"Can I kiss you?" he mutters.

Dean tilts his chin a little upwards. It's enough.

Sam undoes Dean's fly with his tongue on Dean's teeth.

Dean's skin is so soft where he brushes his fingertips over it, right above the seam of his jeans and underwear. He hooks them in and pushes down a little to find that there _is_ no underwear. He has to turn away from that mouth to stutter for air.

Dean's lips press down on the corner of his mouth, his chin. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Sam gasps. His thumbs pull denim down over curved ass, thick thighs, until his arms are fully extended. He kisses Dean again, sucks on a lazy tongue, hums his bliss into that mouth.

"Hm," makes Dean. Sam feels those cheeks heat up, kisses them.

"I'll… I'll pull 'em down now, okay?"

Dean nods. His eyes are closed.

Down to his knees, Sam turns his head to the right, keeps his eyes down. He can hold back. He won't look. And it's okay. Dean's bare feet step out of the legs of his jeans where they are pooled around his ankles. His hand comes down on Sam's shoulder to steady himself.

"Okay?"

"Yeah," Dean rasps.

Sam gets back up to his feet.

"You're hard," says Dean.

"Yes."

"'Cause of me?"

"I, I didn't look."

"I know." That hand still on his shoulder roams up over his cheek, thumbs at stubble. "'Cause of me, Sam?"

"Always," Sam breathes.

The tap is being turned off. With the support of Sam's outstretched hands, Dean climbs into the tub and sits down into the water. He groans in obvious relaxation.

Sam kneels down in front of the tub. It doesn't matter if the tiles are hard against his knees. "Too hot?" he worries. He keeps one of Dean's hand in his own.

"Fuckin' _amazin'_ ," Dean exhales. He sinks back, deeper, up to his chin. His fingers entwine with Sam's. "God, yes. Thank you. _Thank_ you, Sammy."

"You're welcome," Sam smiles.

He lets Dean rest. Face and hair can wait. His hand, too. Sam won't let go of this hand.

They almost fall asleep here, but Dean's voice returns eventually.

"I missed you so much," he says.

Sam's cheek rests on the bathtub. "Me too," he whispers. Dean's fingers flex, so he flexes back.

"I wanted to see you so bad. Jus' hear your voice again. I thought you hated us."

"No. I never did."                              

"I prayed for you to come back. To take me with you."

"I couldn't."

"'Cause of this?" Another squeeze.

Sam sinks heavier against the enamel. "… I had to protect you."

"From what?"

"... Me."

"... You'd never hurt me."

"I was scared. Of myself. I was about to lose my _mind_ over how scared I was."

"But you'd never _hurt_ me."

"You were so young." The words feel like razor blades on his tongue. "All it would've taken would've been a… a single moment… and I would have ruined everything. I couldn't put you through it." Sam shakes his head. "None of it."

"So you ran."

"So I ran."

"An' left me behind."

Sam holds that hand and kisses its knuckles. "I'm so sorry."

"… If I would have known, maybe I-"

"No," Sam interrupts. "No, Dean." He can't bear to hear those words. "You were just a kid. It wouldn't have been what you wanted."

"You think I wanted to live like you left me?"

He raises his head, finds tired eyes. That mouth is tight. Dean speaks softly, not because he is calm but because he long ran out of voice to scream.

"I rather would have _died_ than bein' abandoned by you, Sam."

Again, Sam's head turns. His forehead rests heavy on the bathtub's edge to shield his pinched-closed eyes from inside the water. "Don't say that."

"You don't know what it was like." Dean's voice remains calm. Tired.

Sam shakes his head. No. No, he doesn't know.

"For the longest time, I fantasized seein' you. Around corners, in bars... Fuckin' _everywhere_. I bawled my eyes out for a week 'cause a vic we found looked a helluva lot like you. I thought you'd died. You could as well _have_ died when you left us, Sam, 'cause I mourned you over every single one of those years. I kept thinkin' 'it's my fault, I pissed him off, if only I woulda been nicer to him'. I regretted every single word I've ever said to you, thinkin' it coulda been the trigger. An' now you're tellin' me… you're really, honest to God tellin' me that- that that stupid incest shit of yours woulda _destroyed_ me? Really, Sam?"

Nothing. There is nothing. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry."

"You just shoulda asked. I would've let you bone me through fuckin' _grade school_ if that woulda made you stay with us."

"No," Sam whimpers.

A dry scoff. "You wanna bet?"

"No." He shakes his head. "No. This is not what this is about."

"Isn't it?"

"No. No, it's so much more, Dee, you, I-"

"Yeah - you want me to _love you_ _back_ , don't you. 'Cause fuckin' me isn't enough, is it."

He squeezes that hand, lets it crush him in return. He can't stand against those truths.

"Sam, you're… Just how much more do you expect me to _give_? I've never given anyone as much as I gave _you_ , ever. Wasn't that enough?"

When the hand retreats, Sam doesn't stop it. He keeps his head down. He never should have said anything. He knew this would happen, knew it would tear Dean apart. But he failed. He broke. And he took Dean down with him.

Those calloused fingers run through his hair, tuck it behind his ear. They softly caress his temple, his cheek.

"You already had everything I coulda offered you. I would've done _anything_ for you."

He leans into that hand because he is weak. His throat feels too tight to speak, but somehow it works anyway. "I just couldn't take it. To hurt you. I couldn't do it."

"Yeah, I know. I know." Then, "But I coulda _taken_ it. For you. I woulda done it for you, Sammy."

Dean is laughter when all Sam's body wants to do is collapse. Dean is the last serving in a cereal box for two hungry mouths. Dean is biting through pain and blood with a smile until the sky is clear again.

Dean leans in to kiss Sam's forehead. His lips are silken, smooth and slightly warm. They slide to the side, down Sam's temple, the soft hairline there. Sam shakes under adoration and desperation and everything that love taught him to feel.

Sam tilts his head until their mouths can find each other. His little brother leans closer towards him, lets himself be held. Dean's back is wet and now Sam's sleeves are, too.

One hand on the back of Dean's neck, they stay in silence with their foreheads resting against each other. Their cheeks are wet from the vapor steaming all around them. They get up after a while, after Dean dunked himself down all the way. It will have to do. Sam helps Dean out of the tub.

"You're saying all those things." Sam mutters more to himself than to Dean while he towels him down, has his eyes lowered to where droplets of water drip from hair down a cheekbone, a tip of a nose. Dean's skin is pink and supple from the soaking. He lets himself being moved by Sam, tossed and turned like the drag of the towel throws him. "You're saying all of them, an' you have no idea what they do to me."

"Wouldn't be too sure o' that," Dean mutters back.

Sam shakes with his exhale, hands long lost to trembling. "God, _Dean_ ," he groans, and he sees Dean's eyes fly up to him, vivid and green and clear before he lets himself get kissed by Sam, tongue-first and starving. Dean tastes so good. So so incredibly good, like sin itself and better, like paradise, like heaven. Sam pulls his little brother close until he's leaning against his chest, naked limp body pressed up against his own wide and tensed one, still so small, always smaller than him.

The towel falls and there is a wall for Sam to press Dean's back against, cold tiles against heated skin, and Dean gasps a little and tries not to lose his balance, slots his wonderful legs a little differently, knees even more awkward inwards. Sam licks broadly over teeth and in between, over the corner of a mouth, the edge of a jaw. Dean's pulse hammers against his lips as he kisses here too, eats, rolls all power of his tongue into this taut flesh. Dean's arms are still next to his body until Sam starts sucking - then, a traitorous hand shoots up, against Sam's shoulder, not pushing him away, just holding on to the flannel there, _just holding on_.

Sam feels feral. Sam tastes skin and monster and copper.

A handful of noises happen all at once when he throws Dean on their bed (only God knows how they made it across the corridor); a moan of wood, a rustling of mattress and sheets, a slightly nervous and sudden exhale from Dean. Sam can't be on top of him fast enough, can't dwell on the sight of winter-pale freckles on a thigh, in the shy angle of a knee being pulled up to cover what Sam doesn't allow himself to look at - not just yet, no, Sam has time, Sam can wait, but not for kissing Dean's mouth again, for running his fingers through Dean's hair and around his head, to share breath and feel that skin slide against his still clothed body.

Dean's chest flutters with his short little huffs of breath, a little scared and maybe even a little aroused - because oh dear God, what lies against Sam's hip is neither his belt buckle nor his own erection, oh God, oh please, let it be, let it be.

Dean's hands are helpless, useless. He spreads his elbows away from himself, like a diamond shaped frame for his skull, fingers loosely curled in his palms, armpits exposed and sparsely haired for Sam to fall in love with, for Sam to groan and close his eyes over. Dean heats up under Sam, his fingers, his mouth, his burning cheeks. Dean turns his head a little, just a little to hide himself just the tiniest bit from Sam's hungry eyes, and Sam has to run his mouth down these stretched tendons of a throat that is so exposed and delicate that he can't think of a better life purpose than to cover it completely in purpleblackblue and those sharp dashes of two full rows of teeth.

Dean smells unique. Dean smells like pines and florals and nervous sweat, like skin and salt and home.

Sitting upright, straddling Dean's stomach, it's so easy to let his hands wander over a wide chest, so white with delicate splatters of pigmentation like cinnamon. Sam makes sure to touch every single one of them, especially the almost secret ones in the caves of Dean's clavicles, oh, _especially_ those, because they are so tender and because Dean's muscles jump underneath Sam's fingers when he brushes his fingers there. Up those ribs, avoiding ticklish pits and down again, and it's just too easy to run an entire palm over each fat nipple, from fingertip to heel and back, and they immediately grow hard for him, for Sam, for an alabaster twist of fingers, just barely hard enough to even get a grip on them, but it makes Dean's lips part in a surprised complaint, makes those brows furrow a little and Sam's forehead gleam with sweat. Sam's eyes are wet again just like his mouth is lonely again, so he dives back down where skin and heartbeat lay for him.

A stutter of breath, almost a noise, but Dean holds it back while Sam watches him with wide eyes. Dean turns his face again because he has to squirm, because Sam's thumbs roll over the thick buds his forefingers are tipping up for them. That dark shade of pink all the way up that forehead whisper to Sam that this is the first time Dean lets himself be touched like that, that no matter how cute all these girls were, Dean wouldn't let them see how sensitive his tits could be but instead persisted on the fact that he is a guy and a guy has one erogenous zone which is his cock. But Sam had painted this picture, a hundred, a million times, and because he knows his little brother like nobody else does, he had a feeling it would be like this, that Dean would secretly love it, would writhe and moan all prettily and vulnerable under Sam's fingers, because Sam knows exactly where and how to use them.

He pulls and he plucks. He presses and rubs, teases. His tongue flicks over Dean's bottom lip that starts quivering at that, parting a little wider to press his tongue back against his throat to muffle the smallest sigh, but Sam hears it, Sam knows it's there, even if it's hidden and secret. Every corner of Dean is his.

Sam shifts a little, scoots a little lower down that body. His exhale splutters because something is tipping up against his ass.

"Oh God," he chants in a whisper, "Oh God oh God oh God, Dean, _Dee_." He quickly kisses again before his cheeks are streaked with salt-warm tears, two straight lines of pure piousness, before his throat grows so tight that he has trouble breathing and buries his face against Dean's neck, sobs there because he is not worthy of any of this, because Dean is too good for him, too holy. Dean's arms reach around him, hold him close, closer against that still heaving chest. Dean's breath is hot and warms Sam's skin straight through his shirt, lips slightly pursed because Sam feels hesitant kisses like a child's dare.

More weight being lowered into his ass aligns their cocks in between their stomachs.

Sam's rotten soul sings.

Sam kisses. He sucks moons and stars into Dean's neck, lets pearls of sweat dissolve on the tip of his tongue while he rocks, slowly and softly rocks their hips together, their cocks, Dean's so warm and hard against the seam of Sam's sweatpants, his own on the other side. Sam knows just how slick he is himself, how ruined these pants are yet again because Dean is doing this to him, lets the monster roar wild and free, lets Sam leak and cry in so many places that never were allowed to see the light of day ever before. He could do it any second, now, now or now, come all over himself and into his pants and over Dean's smooth little belly, over the crown of Dean's foreskin-less cock where he rubs his own over exactly now. He wills his body to hold on though, and it listens to him. There is so much more. Sam knows without a doubt that he could come a dozen times in a row if it was for Dean, _with_ Dean, but nothing is as perfect as the thrill before the first break.

Dean's nails are short and sharp. Their drag when these hands become impatient claws, when even those shy little brother hips start jutting a little under Sam's slow rhythm, is so good, so right and never enough that Sam wishes Dean would rip him open, would tear through skin and tissue and leave him raw and marked. Oh, Sam would bleed every drop with a hallelujah on his tainted lips.

"Sam," whispers a tiny voice, almost inaudible, almost silent over the impacts of their movements, over both of their heavy breathing and the tell-tell shuffling of beddings. Sam would have heard it next to a starting plane.

Three letters. Such simple letters. His name. His name from Dean's mouth.

Sam almost loses balance twice as he hefts himself up on one hand, the other on the hem of his sweatpants so quickly that Dean jumps with the involuntary drift of knuckles over his swollen prick. His fist grabs himself hard by the base - not yet, not yet, not yet - and they both stare in between their bodies despite the black of darkness. Sam can smell it. More Dean's than his own. Dean is aroused. He made Dean excited. Sam sniffles and peels his cock out of his pants which he thumbs down his balls. He can't stop staring.

Where his own is a fistful of precome-glazed purple, Dean's is a dusty, dry red. It's a little curved to the right, the head prominently flared, skin even and flawless. Sam's chest punches air out of him deeper than he can replenish it. Dean's forehead is slick against his own. Dean is looking, too.

One slide from base to tip, two. Sam can feel his own pulse here, a heavy drum against his palm. He breathes slow, controlled. Yes. Like this. He wants to do it like this.

He cranes his neck to make Dean drop his head back into the pillows again, kisses open-mouthed and watches through barely-open eyes how those greens are wide and questioning, Dean's silent "Seriously?", Sam's silent, "Yes." Sam loosens his grip, lets the first digits of his fingers brush over a skin that should be familiar but then again isn't, over Dean's beautiful cock, and Sam has barely his pinkie draped back around his base before he feels himself coming.

He holds his breath, wants to feel his heartbeat up to his eyes, wants to be sure that the air hitting his lips is Dean's delicate doing, Dean's choked little "oh" at the first warm jets hitting his pelvis, right where Sam angles it to shoot at, into those coarse, beautiful pubes and all over Dean's perfect, wonderful cock. It feels like it's never ending, as if a dam broke loose, as if he was leaking out up to the very last drop. Here, Sam inhales again, sharp and a little dizzy, exhales a low groan, a sigh, a "thank you" that runs so much deeper than words ever could. Dean looks like he is drowning in Sam's eyes. Sam can relate.

Again, Sam kisses, as light as first drops of rain on a summer day, kisses parted lips that barely give under the feather-like pressure, lets his hand retreat from the roughly-there hold on his shaft, runs it over the beddings, finds Dean's hand, entwines their fingers. He feels how Dean wants to pull back at first before he notices that Sam's hand is completely dry. He didn't stroke himself through his orgasm, barely touched himself. _This is what you can do to me_ , Sam lets him know like this, tips his hips up and lets his still-hard cock slide into the mess it created on this holy ground, through cooling slick and silken skin and- Oh.

Sam opens his eyes, finds slightly hooded green on himself. Dean's erection wilted away to nothing. This was too much for him.

 _Baby steps_ , reminds Sam. _Slow. Slowly_. "Are you alright?" His voice never felt this smooth.

Barely visible, Dean nods. Angelic blink, two, three. Dean softly clears his throat instead of saying something.

"I'll clean this up," Sam soothes together with a kiss to Dean's chin, "and then we'll go to sleep. Okay?"

Another nod, fonder. "Yeah," rasps a tiny boy voice.

While Dean is still slightly awake when Sam returns with a washcloth, he is deeply out before every drop is cleared of his skin. Sam doesn't mind. It was a very tough day. He feels like falling unconscious himself.

Dabs of cotton clean milky skin from clouded white. Sam runs his fingers over Dean's limp penis, across his sac, the muscles over between his hipbones which are not as defined as Sam knows his own to be like. Dean snores softly while Sam kisses the very beginning of his thighs.

He could leave Dean naked for tonight, could fall asleep covered in baby brother skin… but Dean trusts him. Sam put him through enough. Even though Dean said he would have done anything for him back then, that doesn't mean that it's still this literal case. And there is no need to push his limits. Dean will sleep naked with Sam when and if he consciously decides to do so. It's a present thought, and it feels like something that could be true. So Sam grabs a tee and boxer shorts from the wardrobe and pulls the fabric over arms and legs, arranges a waistband and a loose neckline.

Under the covers, together, with his hand resting on Dean's stomach and his head on Dean's chest, pressed up against Dean's side, they could as well be naked. Sam feels nothing separating them.


	7. Chapter 7

They wake up entangled. Dean's legs are clinging on to one of Sam's, and even though it's only a morning phenomenon, Sam's heart sings over the hard flesh against his own.

Dean's mouth is heavy from sleep where he licks into it, his voice a raw little something that groans alive with what could be pleasure. Sam isn't doing anything to him, only kisses, but Dean's hips grind his cock right against Sam's stomach and he can't hold back a blissful moan anymore. One inch is all it takes to shove his erection against the inside of Dean's thigh and he feasts on that gasp that shakes all over his own growl.

Dean buries both of his hands in Sam's hair, and Dean kisses him.

Dean is heaven and hell and never exactly either one or the other.

"Call in sick," Sam pants into that mouth, pulls that leg on top of him tighter against himself, makes it easier for Dean to ride his thigh. He feels Dean nod behind his closed eyes and kisses him hard enough to make teeth clatter.

Dean is hot and shameless. This is how Sam imagined him since he saw what he grew up to while he was away. Dean can be ice cold in the one and ridiculously wanting in the next. This is how Dean had always been, even out of sexual contexts. Sam loves him like never before and rolls them over.

Ecstasy is a complicated thing to handle, because Sam wants to savor every tiny aspect of these moments just as much as he wants to rush through it and do it all over again. When he starts kissing Dean, he already thinks about the next without even finishing in the first place. When Dean juts his hips, Sam already wants to yell at him to go harder, faster, more, even though they just barely started. He wants to cry that oh, dear _God_ , the way his own cock slip-slides over that perfect edge of that hip bone, over that soft belly, is too much to handle.

Dean has his calves wrapped tight around Sam's ass, the back of his thighs, because it gives leverage and friction, not because he wants to _be_ in this position. Sam knows that much and yet pulls them tighter, rocks heavier, because Dean lets him even though he isn't gay, even though he doesn't like being feminine, receiving, underneath. He's spineless for Sam this morning, lets him, and Sam has never been happier to be alive.

"Mh, I- I'm-"

"Oh God," Sam whines, _sobs_ , "Yes, go ahead, oh God _yes_."

Dean's breath stumbles over itself and over their tongues, and Sam shoots his load right along, keeps his hips pistoning, keeps Dean's mouth gaping wide under the obscene obsession that is Sam's want for him. He takes it all in: Dean's delicate frown that buries itself deeper the longer Sam keeps going, the choked silence that crumbles into breathless whines, into sweet sweet ah's after ah's. Sam's eyes tear up all over again before the sun even started climbing the horizon.

They are soaked in sweat, covers more than uncomfortably hot around and over them, but Sam relishes in the squelch of their soaked pants, the idea of their come mixing together through the fabrics. He made him come. It's possible. It's something he can do to Dean. A miracle.

"I'm hot," Dean whines from underneath him.

"Yeah," Sam grins.

"Very funny. Get offa me already."

Sam complies. He sits up at the edge of the bed and tucks his sweaty hair behind his ears. Dean shuffles to the other side. Sam hears him and the bed groan. "Sorry."

"Don't 'sorry' me. You fuckin' _soaked_ me! Gross." Sam hears his brother get up and looks over his shoulder just in time to see the pink of Dean's cheeks together with the indisputable dark spot in the front of his shorts. And his t-shirt. Wow. Sam remains sitting in post-coital bliss and the tacky scent of come while he listens to the shower run over Dean's irregular exclamation of "gross". Sam smiles to himself.

When he comes back into the room, Dean tries to make a bee-line to the wardrobe. That head is lowered but Sam can see the hint of a scowl when he steps between Dean and his goal.

"No." He makes his voice as soft as it can get. Maybe he is still light-headed from those few minutes ago, maybe his brain hasn't started working yet - but he is gonna try his luck with this. "Downstairs," Sam says. The "please" is silent, just like Dean's short wave of protest that Sam can read in the sharp opening of a mouth, the deepening red of cheeks. But Dean complies.

Sam's heart is racing. He knew it. _He knew it_.

Dean's muscles shift under his skin as they walk, then stand still when they've reached the end of the stairs. "Living room," prompts Sam. Dean heads there.

In the middle of the room, timid sunlight falls on Dean's left side from the halfway-shut blinds. Sam is shaking a little bit himself, but Dean's nervousness he can practically _smell_. His brother doesn't turn around though, just keeps his hand on his towel and waits. Waits. Waits for Sam to give him another instruction. Sam's heart swells with the sheer idea of what Dean must think he wants him to do.

"Couch," Sam says. "And drop the towel."

Dean flinches at the second part. Sam waits for a "no" that doesn't come. He exhales as he tries to scrape his composure off the floor when Dean loosens the towel, actually lets it drop where he stands in the middle of the room before he walks over to the couch. Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, hears the characteristic sound of somebody sitting down on the cushioned piece of furniture.

Sam finally dares to look up. He finds Dean sitting on the couch, not much different from how he sits with his clothes on, how he sat down with Sam a hundred times to watch a movie or to have a cup of coffee. It's not an exactly healthy posture with his back rounded like that, ass rather on the edge than up against the backrest. His hands are loosely curled in over his thighs, his knees not as spread as usually. Dean stares somewhere to the ground, a little to his left. His mouth is pale with tension.

Not too much. Not too much. Oh God. Sam makes the first small steps across the room, sees these fingers twitch with the sound of his movements. "Feet on the couch." His throat feels tight.

Dean cringes, hesitates. Sam sees those eyes flicker over the ground, sees a chest expand and flutter. A muscle in Dean's jaw ticks.

With the rise of Dean's feet, his legs part naturally. Hands slide from now too steep legs, so Dean uses them to shuffle closer to the back, away from the edge, so that he doesn't slip off of it. His blush has spread down his neck.

Maybe, while Sam didn't pay attention, Dean became an exhibitionist. He must know how handsome he is. Girls must tell him all the time, maybe even men if they are brave enough. Whatever it is that allows this here to happen, Sam's soul cries his gratitude towards them.

Slowly, very slowly, Sam goes down to his knees in front of his brother. Here, he can hear Dean's quick breathing, can see the thin film of sweat on that skin, the paleness right underneath the heated blood. Sam can only imagine what all of this must be like for Dean. Even if he may be participating to a certain level: all of this is _Sam's_ show. For Sam. By Sam. Big brother Sam, Sammy, in love, starved, tall and scary with too big hands. Sam tries to keep his breathing under control. "If there… If there is anything you don't want, say it. I won't be mad. Not at all. You can say stop whenever."

No answer.

"You okay?"

"I dunno." His little brother's voice is very quiet.

"... We can stop."

"I don't even know what you _want_ right now, man!"

Sam's heart takes a leap. "... Just looking. Just touching."

"Touching _where_?"

"Everywhere," Sam breathes.

For the first time since he came out of the shower, Dean looks at him. It's a squint under furrowed brows. "You _reek_. You didn't even brush your teeth."

"No, I mean- Me, touching _you_ , not, uh... Just like that." Slowly, with enough space and time for Dean to slap it away, to tell him to stop, Sam raises his hand, then lowers it onto Dean's shoulder. Dean looks away again. Sam can feel the tremble in this body. "I just want to touch you, Dee." He doesn't know why he repeats it. Dean must have heard it the first time. He slides his hand the slightest bit down, halfway down Dean's chest. The sensation of Dean's naked skin underneath his hands doesn't fail to make his eyes wet. Already this is too much. How is he ever supposed to get over this? Dean is too much.

When no call comes, Sam puts his other hand on that body as well. Dean flinches under him but doesn't make a sound. A quick glance down and Sam has to accept that Dean is nowhere near aroused. Sam exhales through his nose, wills himself to concentrate on the bliss of skin, of trust. It's okay. He can't expect miracles. Dean is trying very hard to please him and he should be happy with that. Is happy with that. More than happy. Really.

Sam's palms are sweaty themselves as he lets them roam over endless skin. He wants to learn every bump, every curve and every edge. He watches his own movements through drooped eyelashes, observes how very different their skin tones are against each other. Olive and milk. Sam shuffles a little closer on his knees. He fits so very well in between these thighs, he thinks.

Here, Sam is close enough to touch his forehead to that neck. He leaves a kiss on a freckle, then another. Dean's skin slides under his lips just as it slides under his hands. Down those flanks, thumbs settle over hidden hipbones. He searches for them with soft pressure, finds, buries his eyes in the curve of Dean's neck. They are chest to chest like this, and Sam wonders if Dean can feel his heart trying to climb out of his throat just as well as the other way around.

He could stay like this forever. There is peace here. Dean. Dean.

So they stay like this, because Dean didn't move since Sam had told him to. After a while though, Sam hears, "You're really creepy."

"Am I?" Sam kisses skin.

"Makin' me sit here naked with my legs spread and fuckin' _huggin'_ me. Yeah. Really creepy."

Sam blinks very slowly. They are close enough for him to feel the drag of his lashes over that skin. "Should I... do something different?"

Short, tense silence. A snort, shudder. "I dun- What? I, I dunno." Dean shifts a little. "You're- I, I dunno what you expect me to say. Just a, just like, the day before yesterday, I had no idea that you'd get off on this- this _gay stuff_!" Dean makes it sound like an accusation. "You- you were married, for fuck's sake."

"It's just with you," Sam mutters.

"Yeah, 'cause that makes it so much better." Dean's knees press closer together. They dig into Sam's sides.

"… We can stop."

"N-no, I- God, for fuck's sake, Sam! I- I'm not gay, okay?! I don't get off on dicks. An' you being you makes everything, like, a thousand times worse!" Sam feels Dean shifting abruptly underneath him. He gets his hands up to his own face, and the muffled noises tell Sam that he is hiding his face in them. Sam blinks against white skin. "I jus- I'm so fuckin' confused right now. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Nothing makes sense."

Sam switches his hold into a hug. He doesn't know what else to do, really, and he has a feeling Dean needs it just as bad as himself. He hums little shushes, rocks them from side to side. One hand on the back of Dean's head, Sam gestures his brother to put his head on Sam's shoulder. He does eventually, but his hands are separating them.

"I dunno if I can do this, Sammy."

Sam nods to nobody in particular, shushes, rocks. Dean's body shakes with his efforts not to cry. Sam can't do anything to help him. He can't decide for him, especially when equal parts of himself tell him to let Dean go and to eat him whole.

He presses kisses down that too-tight neck, down a shoulder. He has to peel himself from his brother and isn't stopped. Dean still has his face hidden in his hands. Sam kisses down that chest. Dean's arm covers himself here, so Sam shoves his fingers flat over the skin to get more access. He gets to a nipple like that which he cannot _not_ put his mouth on. To do that, he has to bury his chin deep in the crook of Dean's elbow, that sharp V created by an angled arm. It's warm here, and it's almost natural for Sam to open his mouth wider to suck the entire shy thing into his mouth. Dean flinches then, and Sam even imagines hearing a small sound, something hurt, something uncertain. He hums where he is sucking and feels new heat climbing up the back of his neck.

Harder. He runs his tongue over it, broad and flat, and feels it bend underneath him, how it pops right back between his lips when he lets it. Dean hums an unhappy sound when Sam lets go, rearranges his position to get to the other one. Dean doesn't stop him from reaching it but also doesn't grant him easy access. Sam has to shove his face into the same limited space.

It makes a pretty sound when he lets it plop from his mouth. Wet, well taken care of. He watches it turn from a pale to a vibrant color, heavy with blood. _Sam_ put it there. He groans as he eats at it again, feels his own spit on his chin, and nothing could be better. Between his teeth, it's better than any damn gummy bear.

"N-not so- Ouch!"

A hasty whisper, half-panicked and half-shocked, and it sounds so so good to Sam's ears, so tiny and shy and just for him; he _earned_ those words. Sam hums low and never secret anymore, now puts a hand on that limiting arm. It's so easy to shove it aside, to unfold it. It snaps right back though, but over Sam's shoulder. Sam ducks his head and there is nothing keeping him away from this chest now. He groans over Dean's muffled gasp, feels how his little brother withdraws his other arm himself, puts it over Sam's other shoulder, still able to hide his face like that, or maybe just his forehead. Sam can feel breath hitting his neck where Dean leans over it. Sam alternates between both nipples. It's a clear effort not to treat one better than the other.

Dean's hands slide into his hair and hold on there. Instead of pulling him away, they press him closer.

Sam loses a little time here. When he pulls back eventually, and just like Sam's mouth, Dean's chest is slick with spit. His nipples are bitten to full redness. Sam watches his teeth marks disappear from around the left one. Now, he doesn't have to look down between them. He can _smell_ it.

Dean's hands urge him back in place, but Sam works his mouth lower, down barely-there rolls of fat that hide solid muscle from his sharp teeth, nips down and down and down and a shudder goes through Dean when Sam runs them over a hipbone, flicks his tongue inside a navel. Dean's belly heaves before his eyes, nervous and scared and so beautiful, just like the slightly glistening tip of his cock in the bottom of Sam's vision.

Sam licks that wetness away, and Dean's body jumps.

Sam holds his breath, rolls his tongue deep into his mouth. _This taste_. He wants to keep it forever. He can never forget it; it has tainted his being. His tongue darts out again, drags over skin that is beyond everything he could have imagined. Sam knew how his own dick feels in his hands, but he had yet to feel one on his tongue. It's different from a clit, too. Incomparable, really.

He laps over the entire head. "Ohmygod," splutters Dean, and Sam is thinking just the same, gets braver with this encouragement. This might be the first time Sam is doing this, but he is definitely not unprepared. He imagined giving head to Dean from the second he learned about it.

Slow. He goes slow. He kisses the tip (so smooth), parts his lips just the tiniest bit over it, then pulls back. Over and over he repeats it, reaching farther down little by little. When he finally has the entire head in his mouth, he feels another spurt of precome directly onto his tongue. With a groan, he rolls it against that flesh, and Dean's fingers jolt in his hair.

A gentle turn of his head comes with every bob up and down, just a little, just oh-so softly. When he keeps his eyes closed, taste and sensation become more intense. With Dean's hands in his hair, Sam runs one of his hands up the back of one thigh, nudges it a little more outwards for a little more space. He feels the muscles shudder underneath his fingertips, could see a trembling belly if he opened his eyes. His other hand goes down into his own lap where he cups himself over his sweatpants. He groans. He hasn't come yet, but he's close. If he pulled himself out and gave it a handful of strokes, that would do it. But not yet. Just a little longer. He wants Dean to finish first. (In his mouth, oh God, _because_ _of_ his mouth.)

Sam sucks Dean down deeper. Once it hits the back of his throat, he sighs through his nose, presses the heel of his palm harder against his erection. No, he is not gay. No man ever aroused him. There never had been the thought of doing any of those things to any other man but Dean, not apart from a sorry try to explain his desires to himself, to find an excuse. But there hadn't been one. This is the only cock he ever wanted to suck, to touch, to own. And oh, does Sam want this one.

He feels it going limp between his lips. He sucks a little harder, careful not to overdo it, but Dean eventually tugs him away. Sam complies, opens his eyes, looks down where his mouth was just now. It's shrinking, fast. Still beautiful, but… "What's wrong?" His voice feels raw and the fact that it was caused by sucking his brother's dick should paint Sam's cheeks in furious pink. In reality, all it does is sending his dick throbbing.

"I dunno," Dean mutters, hands shooting back into his face, knees drawing closed. Sam lets them, sits back on his haunches.

He softly rubs Dean's knees with both hands. "It's okay."

"It's just so... _weird_."

"I know. I'm sorry." Sam kisses each knee, stutters a breath he didn't know he held in. "Don't worry about it, okay? It's okay."

"I'm so confused," repeats Dean. Sam nods, unseen. "It's all too much and I'm fuckin' scared out of my mind, but I also _let_ you? I dunno what I'm doin'. I'm so sorry, Sammy. I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," Sam breathes. "We can keep it above the belt, if that changes anything."

Dean groans into his hands, folds in tighter on himself. Sam runs his fingers through Dean's hair. "It's not fair when you ask me this stuff. You know I can't tell you 'no'."

"Why not?"

A pained exhale. "I just can't. I dunno. I can't."

Sam doesn't know what to say, so he hums a, "Hm."

"I mean, it's... It's not like I _hate_ it, you know."

Sam blinks.

"I… It's just all too much." Dean sighs, curled in and quietly. "I dunno what I want. I can't think straight."

From knees down those closed calves, ankles, Sam's hands come to a halt at the bottom of Dean's feet. He cradles those toes that are slightly curled in and ice-cold. He kisses them, every single one, then the feet themselves.

Dean might have said so, but Sam believes his little brother still hasn't understood what his words do to him.

Sam hears the phone slipping back into its station and listens to Dean's sigh from the corridor. He really called in sick. Another day - a gift. Sam feels only a little bad about making Dean miss work.

Mindless steps take Dean back into the living room, to Sam. His little brother looks puzzled where he stands in the middle of the doorframe. Lost. He is looking at the floor and holds his arm by the elbow. Sam had suggested that he should get dressed and that Sam should head for the shower in the meantime. Now both is done. Neither of them knows what to do next.

Sam has ideas, of course - a million ways to lay Dean out in front of him, over him, under him, to make Dean feel good, to make himself feel good through Dean. But this entire thing here is fragile. He is pushing at Dean's seams and plants ideas in his little brother that never would have occurred to him. Dean most probably never thought about receiving head from a guy, brother or not. Even the most basic things to stumble over, all these countless "oh God"'s and "I could never do that" are new for him while Sam was done being over those ages ago. Yes, Sam is deeper inside of this. He has an overview where Dean is falling over his own feet. He has to help his brother instead of making it even more complicated.

Sam suggests that they eat, so they eat. He asks if Dean wants to watch a movie and ends up choosing the tape. There is a small thought if he should choose a comedy to lighten up the mood, but the idea of laughing seems absurd right now. Casablanca starts playing and Sam sits down next to Dean.

Enough space between them; for a reason. It's okay, too, because they've always watched movies like that. Then again, it's not long before Dean's head slowly droops and finally leans against Sam's shoulder.

Sam sighs. He lets his fingers search for Dean's. They are not far, naturally. He lets them crawl into the warm cave of Dean's palm, that secret spot in between curled fingers. He is caught there as if Dean was still a newborn with gripping reflexes.

"I always thought we were kinda strange," mutters Dean.

Sam keeps watching the screen in silence.

"Guess this kinda solves the riddle, huh."

"Kinda," Sam repeats softly.

"... Did you ever do stuff like that with a guy?"

Sam shakes his head.

"Not ever?"

"No." He feels into the folds of Dean's palm. "... You?"

"God, no." Dean sounds offended. Sam tries not to take it personal. "... When'd you know it?"

"What?"

"That you... You know."

In the corner of his eyes, Sam sees his brother making a vague gesture with his free hand. He takes a moment to think before he answers. "As I said, it was... a fluent thing for me. I didn't wake up one morning and went like 'boom, done'." Sam lets his head lean against Dean's. He is careful not to put all of its weight into it. "I found out through the little things. One by one. Like a very detailed jigsaw, it didn't make sense for a very long time. ... And then, I pushed it aside for a long, long time."

"You knew before you left, though."

"Yes."

"And you had known for a long time by then."

"... Yes."

Dean doesn't ask further.

"You have to understand, that... I already told you that, but. It wasn't throughout... I... I felt this way even before I... knew about... ... ... Sorry." Sam has to withdraw from their touch. Instead of against his brother, he searches for the armrest to lean on, wedges his now too-warm fingers in between elbow and stomach. "I can't do this. Sorry."

They stare at the screen for a while. The pictures are unimportant, just like the sounds. They seem to take place in another room altogether.

Dean sniffles eventually. He draws his knees up to tuck them under his chin. Sam doesn't have to see it to know it is happening. It's quiet how Dean starts speaking now. "Ever since you told me, I'm trying to figure out where _I_ am in all this."

Sam keeps staring ahead.

"I think that a part of me... a part of me _knew_. An' when you tell me these things, an' when we _do_ those things... You know, a part of me... It's very strange. ... ... I want to tell you that I don't love you, 'cause I don't. But I can't."

Dean puts the words out there very cautiously. It seems to be a hard deal of work to get them together.

Slowly, Sam closes his eyes. Breathes.

"There's something that won't let me. Like a. A tiny voice. Instead that it's not tiny at all. It's just so far away, and I can't exactly see it, but maybe it's actually really really big? ... I'm trying to make sense out of it, 'cause I feel like it's important."

There doesn't seem to be one certain way to pin down Sam's feelings right now. While his heart seems to go a mile per second, maybe it's - at the same time - not beating at all. He listens.

"You know, I keep thinkin'... that maybe. I, uh. I dunno." Dean sighs, short and flat instead of deep and relieved. "Maybe I feel like you do, but not about the gay stuff? Like, or, maybe I do? It's all such a mess. Shit." Shifting, rustling of clothes. "I- I dun wanna upset you."

"You're not."

"Feels like it."

"I can handle it."

A strangled sound, a lopsided smile. "Great," snorts Dean.

Dean can move as smooth as water when he wants to, can be bold and rough. Sam loves both, takes both. Nevertheless, when Dean starts moving with such grace, such beauty that it makes Sam's heart ache, he loves this boy even more for showering him with such affection, such care.

Dean fits so well in Sam's lap, small and light like a girl, a cat, never a grown man, not ever (really). And Sam lets this happen, lets Dean claw himself bloody on Sam's ugliness, tears and rips but oh, isn't this the only way Dean can live?

Dean doesn't use his voice to ask, just breathes so close to Sam's mouth that it's excruciating not to kiss him, body so warm that it's impossible not to put arms around it. Dean's hips make small circles, almost humping. Sam holds him close. "Almost" becomes "definitely".

"You don't have to."

"Shut up."

Dean puts his head on Sam's shoulder. Such a perfect position to hide, to close eyes, to have purple sucked into a neck. Sam stares cross-eyed to watch them bloom. Colorful kisses, markings. Both their breath becomes heavier. Dry-humping like teenagers (and just as nervous), but Dean's erection drags against Sam's belly soon, and that is everything Sam needs.

If Dean just rubs off on him, Sam is alright with that. Sam will come anyway, would only need a few strokes of his own hand at this point, but he can be patient. Soft pushes of hips upwards and he feels Dean hesitating before going with it. It's easier with a counterweight, better to drift against something just as hard. Sam hears a sigh and has to kiss. Dean's face is redhot, mouth slick. Sinful. Gorgeous. He cradles a freckled cheek, rubs away sweat with his thumb. Their noses bump against each other, open-mouthed and panting and it's good, so good that Dean doesn't go soft at all, eyes closed but that's okay - baby steps.

Dean makes secret sounds at the back of his throat and Sam urges them out with a hand pushing down on that lower back, creating such a nice arch and an even nicer angle. He wants Dean to have everything, wants to be and give all this everything. Dean mutters, "Uhn," and Sam almost kills himself on the sound of it, starts trembling when Dean reaches between them with a shaky hand and pulls his own cock from his sweatpants, feels down his balls, then pulls his hand away again and now ruts bare against Sam's shirt and lap, so close and beautiful and the smell is overwhelming. A moment or five and Sam contemplates offering his mouth again, but he abandons and instead floats in what they have now, what Dean created for them. Sam is a beggar and Dean donates cent by glistening cent (Sam kisses those feet for every single one).

Movements have long passed the definition of cautious. Dean must be close with how frantically he is working them (Sam is almost blind now), but it just won't do. Sam chokes on Dean's unnerved grunt, the barely there, "Come on," the hand that steals itself away and down again. And that's it. Dean stroking himself in Sam's lap, right here, knuckles bumping oh-so uncaring and involuntary against Sam's throbbing cock, and Sam can't help but come shortly before Dean. His hands are scrambling for support, for little brother skin, warmth, hair, mouth gaping for a tongue that doesn't come, just breathless, noiseless stutters, and maybe Sam is crying again.

What a feeling to have Dean come on his body. Soaking through Sam's shirt, reaching his skin, blessing him. Sam holds him tight because he is boneless on him, a wet and useless hand trapped between them and Sam's mouth waters on the thought of maybe being allowed to lick it clean one day.

Days come and go and Dean is as hard to read as ever. There are moments where Sam thinks his brother is calm and fine, has somehow found his place in this new situation between them, even looks for Sam's closeness. Then again, these are the exceptions. The usual image of them carries a more than polite distance; carries sharp, green eyes. Sam rolls his shoulders inwards and tries to take up less space.

Dean is considering, testing. Must be. Is testing Sam and his intentions, his self-control. Sam's skin buzzes with this tension. He wants to be good. He can prove to Dean that he is sticking to his words, that he is willing to give Dean as much time and space and everything his little brother wants. All for Dean. Always.

"You think of me when you jack off, don't you."

"I do," Sam answers, his eyes following the path of a lonely drop of water which tries to outrun Dean's towel. Dean allows him to watch him showering. Straight from work, Dean's body is tight, a machine.

"Hmpf." It's not friendly, not too negative either. Sam catches that short glance over to him.

"Does it surprise you?"

"No," Dean says. His skin is pink where he rubbed it dry. His back bows and head droops some as he gathers the towel on his head to get at his hair. His arms bulge under the effort. Sam could watch his naked brother for hours. "What do I do when you think of me?" something under the towel asks.

Sam blinks, closes his mouth which he didn't know was hanging open. "... Various things, I guess. Depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Many things," Sam hums. He sits back on his tiny stool, lets his gaze wander through the bathroom. "What you did that day... My mood... A lot of things."

"Would you think of how I shower?"

"Possible."

"So showering is sexy for you?"

"When you do it, yeah." Sam feels how his cheeks are heating up when he says it out loud. He _never_ says it out loud. But Dean is _asking_. Dean _wants to know_ with that same curiosity that almost drove Dad and Sam insane in too-endless car drives.

A small silence before Dean says, "You're so easy."

"I can't help it."

Sam hears the towel being discharged into the nearby hamper. He looks back at his brother, finds him naked and just as blushed as Sam probably is. He adores the hint of a pout on Dean's lips, melts under the furrowed brows and unsure eyes. So much skin. "What's your favorite me-fantasy?"

He huffs because he is helpless, lets his hands drift towards the insides of his thighs in order to hide what Dean can probably see clearly anyway. "Tough question."

"Lemme hear it," Dean taunts. With those eyes glued to Sam, he slowly sinks down to sit on the bathtub's edge, hands holding on there, shoulders rolling inward. He extends his legs, so lean and young. If Sam did the same, their feet would touch. "I'm curious. C'mon, Sammy."

What it does to him. Oh, what it _does_ to him. "Okay... Uh... Hm." A deep breath, closing of eyes. Reality is too distracting right now. He slides into softer corners of his mind. "Hm. You'll. You'll think I'm a freak," he laughs.

"Try me."

"Hm." His smile stays. He licks his lips. "It's, uh. It's from a while back, this one." Silence. Sam continues while estimating how far he can go. "I... imagined I'd slip into your bed. You'd let me kiss you, let me shove your pants down under the covers. You'd say, 'No, Dad will hear,' but you'd, uh. You'd still hump back on my... on my fingers."

"Your fingers?" he hears.

"Yeah," Sam nods. His eyes are still closed. "It was an... intense phase of mine. It was all I could think about."

"About... about fingering my ass?"

He opens his eyes at that, just a little, just enough to see Dean's silhouette where it's still settled on the bathtub. Sam gives a faint nod. He wonders if he could get away with grabbing himself through his pants in front of Dean. "I know it's, uh... We should stop here."

Dean glares from above heated apples of cheeks. Lick of lips. "Well. 'S not like I can force you to talk, you know."

Oh. _Oh_. "Dean," he warns. The muscles in his legs are twitching dangerously.

" _Sam_ ," Dean mocks. He must do it on purpose, this snooty expression of his, this pout that isn't one, low eyebrows resembling a frown. If Sam could, he would lick all of it right off of that pretty face.

The monster lives in Sam's veins. If Dean knows its name? Its favorite treat? Knows he is rubbing its hairy tummy, drawing it out, making it flash its teeth? It makes Sam rise from his stool, slowly, watches Dean's reaction, his animal-eyes, curve of lips. Those eyes follow Sam's face high and higher but sink down once, back up then. No flinch. No recoil.

Sam flexes his fingers next to his hips.

A silent dare in Dean's eyes tells him to come closer, to come on, big brother, show me what you're made of, so it's not Sam's fault that his knees bend and that his feet rise from and connect with ground again. Dean's wide chest flutters; eyes blink under weight of lashes. Those legs are twirled around each other and hold on tight, so Sam positions his own ones around them, framing them. He leaves some space to let the monster see that he is in fact not pressing those legs together, no.

Dean's lifted chin accuses, eyes so wide and maybe faintly respectful now, shoulders unmoved. One little boy nose tipped up for Sam, sending shallow breath against Sam's pelvis. Gentle hands (they are always gentle for Dean, always, never a tool of torture, of necessity) like feathers onto those shoulders, those glorious, glorious shoulders, and Sam thinks he is drowning in how close and deep Dean is letting him step here.

"You can force me to do a lot of things, actually," Sam mutters, fingers lost and roaming into softest hair. His little brother is there, right there in front and under him, nostrils a little too wide and chest fluttering a little too flat to trick Sam into buying this stupid stuck-up façade. He knows this is Dean, little Dean who pushes himself far and farther, has his eyes wide and proud and his heart hammering hard enough to make glass shatter. Deemed untouchable maybe by anyone who isn't Sam.

Sam should end this right here. He should tell Dean to be honest with himself and stop the pretending, should remind of the many times Sam had promised patience, reverse, pretty much anything to keep Dean here, right here under his hands. Trusting and desperate.

God forgive him, but he can't bring himself to push his brother away.

So when Dean licks his nervous lips again, leans back some more and slowly shoves his hand up Sam's thigh, Sam gapes. No withdrawing, no whispered "wait"; nothing. Maybe he says something, stutters as Dean's palm slips over the cotton-hidden length of his cock, because Dean's eyes flash then, need to be blinked, pretty mouth shivering. It's swallowed away. Fingers peel at the hem of Sam's sweatpants and Sam doubts that he will survive this.

Dean unwraps him one-handed and carefully, cautious enough maybe to jolt off and away if it decides to attack him. Sam looks down his own body, sees his own heaving chest, his trembling stomach. He sees Dean's eyes dropping down in his peripheral vision when the tip starts peeking out. Dean looks so young, so innocent with his rounded shoulder like that, the crown of his damp blonde hair, his naked, soft dick nestled between too smooth thighs.

A sound, a small "hm", indecisive between surprise and discomfort and what could be awe. The hem of Sam's pants stops halfway down his ass and right underneath the base of his dick. Dean's hand doesn't seem to be shaking where he places it on Sam's thigh. It simply feels warm and damp through the cotton. When Sam pays really good attention, he can feel the ghost of Dean's breath tickling over his cock.

Dean's gaze makes it drum with blood, so heavy that it's tipped down. Dean could kiss it now, take it between his lips, test its taste. The thoughts turn Sam's vision blurry, his slit drooling.

Dean looks up at him then, so much little boy right now that it would bring tears to Sam's eyes if they weren't there already. The monster curls its toes along with Sam at the hint of a frown on Dean's forehead when he says, "You've gotta be kiddin' me."

One definitely not shaking hand curls itself around Sam's cock. Sam's chest deflates to nothing.

Sam watches Dean's clumsy hand through pearly lashes, witnesses how the frown deepens over the subtle but failing effort to close thumb and middle finger to a ring. Dean tugs with the finesse of someone who has never held a dick but their very own, without affection and definitely without motivation for it to be good, simply because Dean knows that it's unnecessary.

Dean mutters, "Fuck no," maybe realizing what made Sam run now that he can feel it pulsing in his hand. Sam holds his breath in order not to come, not yet, just another few seconds, please, just another few moments of the hug of Dean's skin. These big eyes are zeroed in on where Dean is jerking his brother off, fascinated or freaked out or maybe both, and Sam almost collapses with how proud and completely humiliated he is right now. Letting Dean see and touch him like this... It's ten times worse than doing anything to Dean. Scandalous, terrible, skin-crawling blissful. Dean - Dean who can't possibly know what he is getting himself into with this, how far he is pulling the monster out of its cage, tugging on that collar as if he _urged_ it to break free -, this beautiful, wonderful Dean licks his lips again as his fingers catch on the underside of Sam's glans.

Sam's mouth opens quick enough for the first two and a half letters of that "wait" but his hips and hands have other plans, stay in place, fingers scrambling over soft neck and into shortest hair. Sam hears a gasp and would answer to it if his eyes weren't rolling back into his skull hard enough to make it hurt. He feels himself jerk in Dean's fingers that tighten a little, have to, or otherwise Sam's dick would go off and shoot right into Dean's face. Sam's mouth explodes with a haul for air after what feels like an eternity, knees going weak instantly, cock still going, still covering what must be Dean's neck and chest, oh God.

He hears himself saying it out loud, hears, "Oh God," like an apology and a love confession all at once, eyes forcing open to watch what he has done, what Dean is still doing. There is a little sickness in that face, sadness in those eyes that are still directed at Sam's dick, but Dean's hand keeps twisting very gently, as if it was polishing the by now purple head. The noises are obscene with how wet they are. Come drips from Dean's palm down into his lap. It runs all the way down to his elbow, pools in the dip between his clavicles.

Dean looks up with the kind of devotion Sam hasn't seen ever since Dad used to be with them. There is uncertainty, fear of rejection, of not being good enough.

To force Dean this raw, this far back - for this alone, Sam deserves the gallows.

"It's okay," Dean rushes before Sam can sob his pleas for forgiveness, curls his fingers tighter once more, makes Sam's knees buckle and fingers dance. "It's okay. It's alright. Everything's fine." Sam has to squeeze his eyes shut to get rid of the tears and wonders which one of them Dean is talking to here.

The hand disappears, leaves him dripping and still aching, strung like a bow. Shy eyes, scrunched up nose against Sam's desperate hunger.

"An' I had just finished with the damn shower," little brother voice accuses.

Sam offers his assistance, is being rejected but climbs in nevertheless. Dean scowls but doesn't push the hand away that drifts over his almost clean again skin. Him. His. _He_ did this. It's _his_ come being washed off. _His_ dick that Dean brought to climax.

Dean gasps but avoids looking at Sam when he is being crowded against the wall, receives demanding plucks to his nipples, gets his neck kissed. Sam feels him swallow and bites. He doesn't stop until Dean starts to whimper. Dean's pain tolerance is an impressive thing.

A mouth is waiting for him, wide and dripping and not red enough, not full enough. Sam chews on a bottom lip, dares to shove his hand between Dean's legs. It's only fair. Dean had done the same. Dean wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been okay with Sam returning the favor.

Sam's eyes flutter open at the heavy weight of something blood-filled in his hand. Dean looks almost hurt, as if he didn't expect it either. That mouth falls open like an invitation on the first few strokes and Sam's tongue doesn't need to be told twice.

With the shower beating down on their shoulders and heads, their panting is almost secret. Sam has to abandon his plan of watching Dean's face as his movements get returned. He groans with the overstimulation, shudders with the gratitude, the love. Dean presses his lips against Sam's and Sam wonders if he will be able to hold off until after Dean has come. If Dean can come at all, that is. Sam will simply have to make it good. When Dean hasn't gone soft but actually a little harder after some time, Sam's chest swells with something like hope.

It's beautiful to have Dean unraveling right beneath his hand, his mouth. Skin starts to heat up, breath comes harsher, uneven. Two fingers twisting his plump chest quickens the process. Sam loves the way Dean's hand loses its rhythm, picks up again, loses again. As if it was so good that he couldn't concentrate anymore. As if Sam was making him feel good enough to turn him this breathless.

"Mh." Dean tries to chew on his own lip, but Sam licks it fat instead. That chin twitches, eyelids flutter.

Oh God yes.

Sam steps a little closer, has to feel Dean's heat closer. He bows his head to press their noses together. Their fingers rush against each other in between their bodies. Dean is free to bite his lip now. No complaint.

He feels it in the way Dean's cock fills just that little bit more, now really fat, now really ready. Sam grips him harder, thumbs over a slippery tip on every occasion. He is well aware of the fact that once Dean will be coming, he will follow right along. It doesn't bother him at all. They both know Sam has no other choice.

The sight of Dean gulping in a rushed breath before holding it deep inside of his chest shoves Sam right across the edge with enough exhilaration to make him dizzy. Like a fist right to the stomach, and suddenly Dean is coming, right there, right in Sam's hand. The water from above is washing them clean almost immediately, so Sam has to curl his back to protect these precious little seconds, the thick spurts hitting his skin, Dean's hand, Sam's cock. Sam chokes on his own breath and watches how he creams Dean's belly with an even milkier white.

"Hey," he hears Dean mutter after a while. He doesn't have an ounce of idea how long they have been standing here. Hands push against his shoulders, urging him upright. Sam lets them, but not without leaving a trail of kisses from shoulder over neck and up a jaw, across pecking lips. Dean's cheek is soothingly warm against his own. Arms fold themselves around Sam's back.

They don't get out of the shower before their fingertips are too wrinkly to ignore.


	8. Chapter 8

How delicately Dean’s stomach jumps underneath Sam’s palm, underneath a t-shirt, in the morning right before work. How good Dean’s neck smells, how warm it is for Sam to nuzzle it. How there is absolutely no sound in the kitchen but the coffee machine and Sam’s delirious sigh.

Dean can’t bear to use actual words but shakes his head oh-so softly, makes the fringes of his hair slip-slide against Sam’s forehead like that. A hand is put where he is hard and already leaking, waiting, always, and if Dean will never happen to blow him, Sam would not be sad about it in the slightest. Sam whispers that, chokes, “That’s perfectly fine,” maybe only gets out half of it because the sheer thought alone of _any_ part of Dean touching him _there_ still short-circuits his brain, is more than enough. Still, Dean looks uncomfortable, puts his lips into a pout Sam cannot _not_ kiss.

Right after coming home, after stripping off work and outer world, Dean smells like motor oil and other people’s lunchbreak smokes. Under the shower, with Sam, he smells like water and summer and little brother.

It’s a stupid thing, a tiny little stupid thing Sam allows himself just because it’s going so well lately, because Dean lets him get away with way too much. Even jerks him off now, daily; sometimes twice if Sam is persistent and lucky enough. (Sam can’t remember not being lucky since coming back to Dean.)

So Sam expects his brother to yell bloody murder. Hears it even before he touches there, shoves his fingers there, where droplets of water disappear as if in mockery. But Sam has two caps of fingers wedged in the cleft of Dean’s ass and the world is as silent as it could be.

Sam hears the water pouring down on them and he hears his own heart beating, strong and loud, always too loud, and he wonders if maybe it was only a little more quiet, could he hear whatever secret sound Dean must be making? ( _Must_ , right?) But Dean says nothing. Stays stock still, facing the wall, hands not moving anymore where they were spreading soap only a few moments ago.

Then. The most muffled, the faintest draught, a shiver. For a second, it feels as if Dean is pulling away, wants to escape from the strange invasion, the foreignness (has any of his girls ever touched him here?). The second passes and Dean is still here, right here. Neither of them moves.

“Is... this okay?”

Dean doesn’t answer but Sam feels like his brother has opened his mouth; the words seem to be stuck. He presses wide kisses across Dean’s shoulder while he wishes he could do anything to coax out Dean’s voice. Wants Dean to speak out, speak for himself. Wants Dean to say that he does indeed _want_ this. That this is not something that’s only happening to keep Sam amused. That Dean wants this, too.

“Talk to me, c’mon,” he tries, cock dutifully hard, dutifully kept from touching any part of Dean right now; would be too much, not fingers _and_ cock; Jesus, the mental picture of that. Sam swallows, kisses. “Dean, c’mon.”

Dean wants to say something; Sam can feel it. Can feel it vibrating all the way down to where he has his fingers so intimately, so closely. Dean is vulnerable and always has been, but this very moment feels like peeling layers of skin from living muscle.

Why does the thought of Dean giving this up for Sam even though he doesn’t truly like it not disturb Sam?

The monster makes Sam curl his fingers, makes them spread and feel and prod.

_Map it out. Could be the last time he lets you touch him here._

“I’m good. It’s okay.”

Dean lays these words down carefully, so carefully and so raw, the most fragile plant under a threatening boot.

Sam makes a sound in the same way he feels – gut-shot – and it makes them both sway with the power behind it, the urgency and frustration, so Sam hides it in Dean’s shoulder. Sam is aware of the regret in the stiff reaction from the smaller body in front of him, between Sam and wall and it could as well be _wall_ and wall, nothing in Sam but the will to stay right here and never leave again. Both Sam and the monster can’t care, won’t care, because Dean knows how to tame both, probably frowns and squeezes when he adds, “Go ahead. I dunno.”

That Dean has eventually been crowded into the wall by nobody but him doesn’t occur to Sam for a long while, not until he manages to breach the surface of his mind to struggle for air. He feels dizzy, warm, mindless. His fingertips are wrinkly again; the one of the middle finger angling in to actually penetrate his little brother, and how insane is _that_? Sam has not enough air left to even dream of crying, can only think in small words, like ‘in’ and ‘now’ and ‘Dean’. He has been massaging over what still is a tight clutch for god knows how long, but Dean’s body still inches to the front, away from Sam’s fingers, when it happens.

Something almost-silent, something uncomfortable like, “Uhn,” but Sam knows and wraps his other hand from hip to cock and rushes, “I’ve got you.” He can’t lose now.

Dean’s body is as stubborn as it is consuming. The corner of his vision tells Sam about hands spanning and flexing rather aimlessly across too-slippery tiles, but all of Sam’s perception zeroes in on the incredible sensation around this single one of his ten fingers. Only one finger and Dean can make him lose himself over it.

So typical.

It happens too fast, in a blur, and suddenly Sam is breathing hard into the back of Dean’s head, his soaked hair, and a thin version of Dean’s voice reaches out to him, urges, “Ow,” and Dean _never_ says it hurts, never complains, and it takes Sam aback and out of the water and his senses all clear and he finally pulls back (if only just a little).

Dean is still on his finger which is now knuckle-deep, hidden all hot and tight (what a good home), Dean plastered to the tiles, back a little arched, shoulders hitched and head hanging low.

In the same moment Sam uses to vocalize his, “Sorry,” he decides to carry this here over to the bedroom. All of it.

Dean turns his mouth away at first but lets Sam kiss him on the second try, and Sam now sees those brows furrow slightly when he pushes his finger back in after pulling it out already, just a little back and forth, just a little more. He says something childish like, “Let’s get you dried off,” and Dean doesn’t reject it, maybe knows what Sam wants, maybe doesn’t. Either way, he lets himself get toweled down; doesn’t have a full erection anymore but that’s fine, that’s still something, not all ground lost yet; Sam can work with that.

In the bedroom, Sam has his tongue wrung around Dean’s own. His cock is caught tight between their bellies, one hand on Dean’s ass and one curled into his hair, and Dean says nothing. There is a hint of resistance in Dean’s legs when Sam urges him to lie on the bed; don’t trust (and Sam cannot blame them). But Dean goes down, makes a face but _does_ go down, uncertain how to roll or lie because he’s vulnerable everywhere, naked and still not as dry as Sam had promised, but maybe Sam is not much of a good big brother.

Dean ends up on his back and his thighs twitch when Sam runs his hands over them, lets his lips follow. A thumb to Dean’s hole and Dean holds his breath. Sam knows the silence of that, advises, “Breathe,” and gets an unwilling something for it. No hand into his hair – Dean needs both of those to hide his face behind.

Sam’s first instinct is to reach out and remove those blinds because _he needs to see_ , but in the end is still present enough not to take this last remaining resort away from Dean. Instead, Sam watches him as he is, through the wide gap of Dean’s legs – breathing quickly, tight belly quivering – and licks a broad swipe from hole to balls. The texture of Dean’s skin here is addictive and the longer he keeps running his tongue and lips over it, the more Sam’s eyes drift closed. A daze. His thumb keeps playing, softly pushing, keeping Dean soft where Sam dips his tongue in after a while. It contracts at that, at the slick and apparently completely new sensation, and finally there’s a fist in Sam’s hair now, slightly pushing, but the monster pushes harder.

“No,” Dean shakes, far away and so so uncertain, “that’s nasty, c’mon, stop.”

Sam manages to breathe his, “It really isn’t,” before burying his face and tongue and mouth hard, ignores the pull on his scalp and the too-tight pressure around his tongue, because _he needs this_. Would crawl into his brother if he could. Wants to. Has a feeling Dean would let him. Sam never was this close to having it, never was this close to his brother, to Dean, his everything.

“ _Sam_.” Sounds heart-wrenching, cock-wringing. Sounds like ‘please no’ and ‘please yes’. Two hands in Sam’s hair now and Sam works his mouth, has dreamed about this for so very long that it would feel like coming back to something familiar if this wasn’t _Dean_ underneath (and around) him, if it wasn’t what he deemed impossible for the longest part of his life. It’s still not enough, will never be enough, and Sam scoots closer on his belly by using his knees, shoves Dean’s thighs apart and up some more until Dean’s ass lifts off of the bed and Dean growls, probably embarrassed to be manhandled like this, to be ravished and loved and taken care of like this.

Dean’s inside taste dark and forbidden, like something you shouldn’t stick your tongue or anything in, and that makes everything worse, better, completes the illusion for Sam and he’s so hard he’s aching despite the hasty hand job he got this morning. He’s humping the sheets they slept in together last night, the ones Dean will make him change if he should happen to come all over them. He thinks of Jess, how he would put his mouth on her for the duration of entire afternoons, of lazy mornings, and how she would praise and moan and come over and over. With Dean, this seems impossible.

Sam couldn’t love Dean like he loved Jess. For Jess, he was drowning. For Dean, he is burning.

Dean makes him feel too alive, too out of his mind. What Sam would give Jess over the span of hours, he would pack into minutes for Dean, and yet, one lifetime doesn’t seem anywhere near enough to give everything he wants Dean to have of him.

So Sam wraps a hand around Dean’s cock because that’s what he wants – wants Dean to writhe more, to gasp and to roll his hips, and he wants Dean to come. Sam’ll pretend it’s at least partially due to his tongue up Dean’s ass, and that’s enough, that’s fine. Dean is only on half-mast but that changes quickly, only needs a few backhanded strokes to get him gasping, to loosen the white-knuckled fingers in Sam’s hair. Sam watches with wide eyes from between Dean’s legs, watches Dean’s unguarded face in the quickly progressing dusk, how he’s frowning and grinding his teeth just to let his tongue slip out to wet his lips, probably subconscious. The little hitches of breath do it all for Sam, really.

Sam keeps watching while he presses his thumb into his brother, right next to his tongue, and has his brother’s throbbing cock in his hand, squeezes to feel the blood thrumming through it, so hard and full, and Dean clenches around him in the most delicate way like a promise, a hesitation before fluttering open, then tight again, open, tight; it seems not to be able to decide, but that’s fine. There’s a beginning stickiness in Sam’s palm as he strips Dean’s cock with intention, tight and slow like his little brother likes it, how Sam learned his little brother likes it without needing to ask, just by testing alone. The fingers that were hurting him not long ago now roam aimlessly through Sam’s hair, ruffle it, sweep it along the bared insides of Dean’s thighs and that must tickle, makes Dean jerk faintly.

Sam shoves his chin forwards and his thumb deeper at the same time and that earns him a strangled, “Fuck,” from above, makes him pull back and repeat until he’s built up a gentle rhythm with his thumb.

Dean’s letting him fingerfuck him. The thought beams like a neon sign in Sam’s perception, bright and undeniable, and the pace of his hand quickens. He needs to have Dean coming like this, with Sam all over him, _in_ him, _filling him up_.

Oh, the _sound_ of those words.

Dean quietly hisses, “Shit, fuck,” as if he can’t believe it himself, as if he can’t believe Sam could make him feel this way, could give him these sensations, this pleasure; and Dean’s hips rock, oh-so very slightly but _they do_ , Sam can feel it like it’s his own body that’s moving. He would pant open-mouthed like a dog if he could, if he wasn’t sealing his lips around Dean’s asshole to keep him all to himself, to give him everything. Dean’s heat increases in both Sam’s hand and on his mouth, everything pulling tighter, legs twitching, balls drawing up to softly bump against the bridge of Sam’s nose when he rocks his face into Dean’s ass. Sam’s thumb is knuckle-deep and pressing further now, pulling Dean apart as much as that body allows, and Sam is soaked in sweat because it’s exhausting, exhilarating to love like this.

There’s a sound that almost resembles loss when Sam withdraws his mouth, but Dean all but bucks up violently when it is being put somewhere else instantly. Lips wrapped tight and tongue swirling like it had been in his ass, it’s what makes Dean’s grip violent again, his breathing stammering and loud, louder, until he chokes on it, buried deep in Sam’s throat and on now _two_ of Sam’s fingers – thumb traded for middle and ring, so much longer, so much more flexible – and when he comes, he fucks his hips up into Sam’s mouth but the way back down to get up once more drives him onto Sam’s fingers, hard, involuntarily, probably rough and painful judging by the pull around Sam’s fingers, but fuck, Dean’s never come so hard before since they started fooling around like this.

Dean whimpers sweetly, perfectly, while he keeps fucking himself between mouth and fingers, Sam with him every second of it, not letting go, maybe never again, not with the way Dean’s fingers scrabble over his head, looking for support they can’t get, support nobody could provide him through this. Sam swallows obediently, hungry, but the monster keeps his lidded eyes in blazing red and white thunderbolts, the fire still burning, his own cock fucking the sheets, blind and frantic, and Sam is nothing more than an animal, is he?

There’s pleading mumble when Dean has enough, rode out every last drop down Sam’s throat, the fluttering of his insides ebbed down to a minimum, a scorching, soft clutch barely holding on like his own consciousness, maybe, like Sam’s sanity as it is confronted with so much sensation, so much emotion. A last gulp and Sam lets Dean’s cock slide free, spent and already mostly soft, and it’s beautiful, really, but not as beautiful as the hotredpink of Dean’s insides when Sam dares to scissor his fingers with his eyes wide, peeking inside, _inside!_ , and everything is shiny with spit and perfect. Dean groans his displeasure but Sam is mesmerized, gets up on his elbow first and knees later, kneels in front of Dean’s splayed open thighs and his asshole stretched out on Sam’s fingers.

He must be gawking because Dean’s hands shove into the picture to cover where he’s so very exposed, and there’s a threatening, “Hey,” but it’s soft and sleepy and Dean wants it to be over.

The monster isn’t done yet.

“Dean.” He climbs along the sated line of Dean’s body, on elbows and knees, and Dean turns his face away as soon as Sam comes close to it, making a face, and Sam can feel those hands protective over that limp, oversensitive cock as he brings his own leaking one down to rub between their bellies.

“Dean,” Sam repeats, because he needs to say, needs to hear, needs more connection now that he’s not inside his brother anymore, needs to or otherwise might lose himself in all that wasted space. He lays the letters damp-hot against Dean’s bared neck, has his eyes closed and is shaking, all muscles tight and molten down at the same time.

Dean, who left his legs spread so innocently, so trusting, seems to freeze to stone when Sam uses a hand to direct himself between his legs.

“Dean, just... Only... I only want to... Inside you.”

Sam is certain he must be sounding like a madman. Mumbling, confused, broken, gasping for air as he does. The urge is so strong, the possibility so close, so available, Dean right here and wet and hot when Sam bumps his cock against him, and god, it would only take a second, just a moment, to...

“I promise. Just the tip, promise. Let me. Please.”

The air seems to vibrate around them, in Sam’s lungs and maybe in Dean’s, too, pressing against Sam’s shut eyes, on his back, the underside of his cock, everything strung tense and tight.

An endless silence seems to stretch until Sam hears the flattest exhale, followed by the smallest, “Go ahead.”

Already pressed so impossibly close, there’s only a breath of force needed to push inside, then some more because Dean is bearing down in instinct, that body trying to keep the invader out, but Sam is already coming, shooting hot and messy while still wrestling his way inside, and he claws his hands into the sheets and keeps his hips from bucking because he promised. Dean is wheezing anyway though, seizing under Sam’s bowed body, squirming like a fish on dry land and then he’s gripping Sam’s hip with one of his hands, tries to stop, to shove away, but instead digs his nails into Sam’s ass with silent desperation while Sam is falling apart with his face buried in the bed, right next to Dean’s neck, drooling and panting and it feels like being caught in Dean, to be crushed and eaten alive. The pressure is sucking, wanting, pulsing around him as he pulses himself, jerking and shuddering because he won’t ever be able to shake the memory of this.

Everything before this is now meaningless, pointless, and there is nothing beyond them.

The tornado in Sam’s head only lifts very slowly but doesn’t seem to want to die down, keeps him vibrating and tight, aching, and except for his own breathing, Sam can’t hear anything. Dean is very quiet while he waits. Sam imagines him pressing his lips closed, just like his eyes, mentally counting down or up, listing prime numbers or something similar.

Shame. Disgust. It grips Sam by the throat and turns him teary-eyed, breathless, but testingly (he _has_ to) he grinds his hips, grinds himself inside of Dean and Dean clutches right back, push-pulls. Sam can feel himself in there, put himself in there, sloppy wet and if he pulled out it would leak out, would mean to separate himself from his brother, and that childish unwillingness is what makes Sam push himself deeper. He’s still hard, his head still bursting, and it seems right.

Sam stares into the sheets and feels sweat running down his chest while he listens to one quiet, betrayed breath.

The nails have pulled back from his flesh and now that hand weakly returns to his hip to push. Dean’s other hand joins the efforts on the other side, mirroring, but Sam anchors his knees in the mattress and the only way he will be going is _in_. Shallow, trembling motions bring him deeper and Dean’s hands go more pliant with each new inch disappearing, and they have travelled up to rest on Sam’s lower back once he’s almost bottomed out, so deep he can feel the wet cleft of Dean’s ass bleeding warmth into his pubic bone, almost touching, almost.

Sam lets his movements grow until swaying becomes rocking, deep and grounded, Dean’s taint pressed up against his pubes, and he listens for sounds, for breath, but Dean is as quiet as a corpse.

Sam asks the monster if it’s happy now. It answers:

_Well, what about you?_

“Dean.” The letters feels airy on his tongue, too thin, but something seems to uncurl in his brother with it, so Sam must have said it, must have. Sam raises his head, finally, needs to see Dean’s face, needs the connection, needs to know Dean is alive and won’t die, not now, not yet. “Dean,” Sam pleads while he rocks back and forth, pulling Dean’s body with him, _on_ him, is on his elbows now to crane his neck and to reach Dean who has his face turned away as far as it will go, almost buried in his own shoulder, eyes wide and glassy and teeth clenched hard behind slightly gaping lips, throat bobbing with what must be a swallow (either spit or bile).

Everything shattered in front of them, around them, and Sam feels like dying and being born again at the same time. “ _Dee_. Sorry. So sorry. I’m...”

“It’s okay.” Dean’s voice sways with the impact of Sam burying himself in him, knocking a little air out of him on each slide in. “It’s okay, Sammy. It’s okay.”

Sam sobs.

“Keep goin’. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Sam does. He finds Dean’s mouth eventually, blindly, as it is turned towards him, opening, too, and Dean’s gums taste just as sweet as ever, as before, not bloody or hinted with vomit. Sam moans because he hurts and because he’s never felt as whole, as complete as now that he’s buried to the hilt in his brother.

Dean stutters an exhale in Sam’s mouth when Sam anchors himself anew, breaches more weight on his elbows for his hips to have more momentum, and when his cock starts to produce slick noises where it punches inside, Dean’s hands scrabble from back up to shoulders, hook there, hold there. There’s a rumble from Dean, deep and troubled, and Sam pulls his mouth back halfway through it, peels his eyes open to watch the deep frown on Dean’s face, the wide, wet pink of his mouth distorted in fascinated pain and frozen in the kiss, and Sam has never felt better, closer, more in love than in this moment.

Sam’s hips snap now, hurried little things because he can’t take to pull out too far, too long, because every bump of cockhead against Dean’s deepest insides shoves breath out of Dean’s mouth like an involuntary present, a little sound starting to squeeze out along with it. Overwhelmed, fascinated and lashes still clumped with lover’s tears, Sam watches every motion, intent on memorizing them forever but well aware that it won’t be possible, that it won’t be _necessary_ because this is them now, this, he won’t ever not live a day without this, being as close as humanly possible with Dean, his Dean, his, forever his now.

His load makes Dean receptive, runs down Sam’s own balls when he fucks it out of him. The earlier sensitivity is gone; Sam’s cock so numb and yet prickling that he could go forever, for hours, or shoot in an instant. Both seems equally possible, desirable. Dean is clutching around the fat girth of his cock, bulges obediently around the flared head no matter how deep it’s shoved, and Dean’s nails are deep in the skin of Sam’s shoulders and that’s okay, that’s ideal, because Sam wants to have scars to show for this, wants proof and imprints and altered DNA from this. Sam groans for the grinding of Dean’s teeth, wants them on his neck, his arm, chest, no matter where, needs Dean to rip into him and leave a piece of himself there, wants to be clawed open and take all of Dean’s pain, absorb it, keep it for himself.

But Dean wouldn’t hurt him, would never hurt him, because Dean’s Dean, but maybe- “Grab my hair,” and Sam’s voice is shaking into obscurity with that, Dean’s eyes flashing open and alarmed and pupils pin-prick-tiny to ever-consuming in less than a blink of an eye, and then there’s a sting that pulls Sam’s head back and has his eyes tearing up and he sobs dryly, gratefully, and if Dean succeeded in ripping some hair right out, well, that wouldn’t be so bad, really.

It’s Dean who yelps next, completely taken by surprise how much the pain urges Sam on, how it makes everything sweeter, heavier for Sam, and Dean is not cursing only because he has not enough breath to form words, can only shout his groans and complaints in bare vowels, but Sam understands, always.

Slap of skin on skin extreme now, ear-shattering, the massive bed creaking in effort of compensating whatever Sam is unleashing, Sam only barely aware of his balls slapping against Dean with bruising force, and the burn in his head and of his orgasm fuses in one, takes a leap – and takes Sam with it.

His throat hurts (maybe he’s shouting). He feels light, like sighing, like shedding his body, leaving it all behind, only keeping the warmth of Dean around him, in him.

There’s really nothing else he would ever need.

The world puts itself back together with a gasp for air, a distracting tug on his hair, and Sam blinks wildly up against the wall, head still bent at a weird angle that Dean is directing with his grip now, then releases. Sam’s lungs hurt from his rattling breath, sweat pouring from every pore, and he feels shaky, unsteady. He’s still buried but starts slipping out, now truly spent, maybe spent forever, maybe this will be enough for the monster to stay sated, forever, and all tears are gone and when Sam looks down, there’s nothing but Dean.

Dean, watching him closely with squinting, suspicious eyes. Still frowning but not distorted anymore. Pupils blown, face and neck flushed, shining with sweat. His mouth looks well-bitten, so full with blood it’s edging on red, and maybe Dean realizes it’s over now because he expels a deep, deep breath, licks his lips and lets his head sink deeper into the sheets, to the side. His hands start sliding from Sam’s back but Sam doesn’t want them gone yet, ducks so they can stay, don’t need much power to just lie wrapped around him.

Their chests pummel together in the perfectly synched rhythm of their hearts. Sam is very sure Dean is keeping his eyes open, too, that they are both staring in either direction – one up, one down. Sam can’t see a thing since he’s buried in the sheets but he has a feeling it wouldn’t change much if he looked anywhere else right now.

A new night comes to visit, oblivious to what happened. 

When Sam opens his eyes the next morning (something like morning; all lights still heavy and blue), Dean is not there.

Sam closes his eyes once more. Takes a breath through his nose, deep, dwells in the rupture he feels inside of him and the deep whirl of panic that are taking him down.

Years pass as he lies there, unable to move, a million thoughts racing by, memories. About last night and about the last year in general – his life, all the times he made the wrong choice (there are so many of them), and Sam is sure he dies. At least some part of him clearly does.

The house is quiet, but Sam cannot listen for it. There is no willpower in him to do anything ever again. He doesn’t feel like he deserves to. There seems to be no sense in living.

Eons before some leftover part of Sam’s consciousness suggests checking the house for traces, the sidewalk for the car. He could still be here, or, if not, there could be hints where he went. Sam could still find him, surely. (He wants to say that he doesn’t want to, that he’s done enough damage, but he’s too selfish to lie to himself this hard; not anymore.)

Like a wind-up toy, Sam sits straight up, finds that he is still naked (they must have fallen asleep like stones last night, unsure when or how) and grabs jeans and tee as he speeds through the room, then into the corridor. He yells for his brother but there’s no answer.

Desperation. Hopelessness. Again, Sam ruined everything. Maybe this time for good. Must be.

Sweat. Heart like a war drum, steady and heavy, making Sam’s vision blurry with adrenaline. He storms into the bathroom which turns up deserted, out into the corridor, yells again, still nothing – down the stairs – yelling – nothing – front door, and-

The Impala, patient and ever-so calm, is still where Dean parked her yesterday after work.

Sam feels like falling to his knees at the sight but only allows himself to topple forwards into the cold autumn air. Autumn again. He arrived here in autumn, too, last year. Stood right here, on this doorstep, unsure if Dean would accept him, would take him back.

Sam stares at his naked feet on the concrete floor. Nothing has changed.

Back in, panic less blinding but still prominent, blood rushing too quickly, Sam all but sprints from room to room. In a strange moment of clarity, he tries to remember if the bedroom looked untidy, if Dean took anything, packed a suitcase and maybe got a taxi, but that doesn’t make sense; nothing but the Impala and the photographs mean anything to Dean in this house.

Sam checks the kitchen last and that’s so ironic, so _iconic_ for Sam’s bad luck and his cursed self, because of course this is where Dean is, back turned to the door and silent and not reacting to Sam at all, to Sam’s relieved haul for air, to the sound of Sam’s knees slouching so hard he has to grab on to the doorframe to keep from falling over.

It’s right there, on Sam’s tongue, ‘ _Dean’_ , like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing, unable to accept that Dean didn’t leave him, but nothing comes out but a wheeze, choked-off and painful, and Sam’s chest is so tight it might be bursting from the inside.

Still, no reaction from Dean. Sam recognizes the posture of his brother’s arm – angled to hold a cup of coffee in front of his chest as he oversees the garden through the kitchen window. His hair is unkempt, his boxers and shirt the same he stripped out of yesterday, before...

Sam swallows but there’s nothing but acid in him. “Hey,” he croaks.

Dean mutters, “Hey,” without turning, without really moving.

What is there to say? Nothing is the same. Sam’s head is pounding with useless possibilities. “Why didn’t you wake me up? How long have you...?”

Sam’s little brother’s shoulders heave and drop with a deep, nasal sigh. “Dunno.” Then, nothing else.

“I thought...” And Sam takes a shaking step forward. Just one. Just a little closer. He has to. “I thought you left. That... That you were gone.”

A grunt. Bitter and both too young and too old. Dean’s shoulder bulges as he uses his arm to stabilize his stand against the kitchen counter. His head is hanging. Maybe he’s staring into his coffee. It smells fresh, as if he just brewed it. “Confusin’ me with yourself there a little, Sammy. I ain’t the ‘leaving’ type.” Dean takes a sip from his cup. Chuckles to himself without a hint of humor. “More like the... ‘staying behind an’ bearing grudges forever’ type.”

“Yeah.” Sam mirrors the sad laugh, makes another few steps even though he shouldn’t, wipes his palm across his face because he feels ten years older and like after running a marathon. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change. “Yeah, kinda sounds like you.”

Dean turns around but Sam cannot take the view, keeps his hand over his eyes and pretends to be blind. He keeps smiling because if he doesn’t, he’ll start bawling.

Sam manages, “Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

“Probably ‘cause I’m a giant jerk,” answers Dean rather quietly.

Dean is always warm and Sam seems to be always cold, and even though Sam is the taller one of them, he leans against his little brother in search of stability. While he does so, while his chest softly bumps into Dean’s shoulder, he hates himself for it.

Dean stands strong for the both of them. “I meant it though,” he mutters, still so so quietly and Sam’s little boy again, shy and the entire world is a threat and did you double-check the salt lines, son? “When I said it was okay. It’s okay, Sam.” When Sam sobs for that, Dean adds, “I’m okay. Really.”

“God,” and Sam feels himself crumbling to pieces in the care of his brother, “I, the things I did, I, I don’t know what-“

Dean interrupts sharply with, “Oh shut the fuck up!” and jostles Sam with a hefty shove of his shoulder. “You _do_ know and I told you _it’s okay_ , so fuckin’ stop it with the goddamn crying, Sam! You’re a grown man, walk it off, for fuck’s sake!”

Dean’s aggressive outburst makes everything even worse. What a small insight into Dean’s mind this must be. So much he won’t even let Sam see. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re kinda not,” murmurs Dean and puts his cup down, and here Sam allows himself to see his brother, sees the troubled forehead, the small, restless eyes, pale lips that quirk into a lopsided smile. Dean avoids meeting Sam’s eyes, too. “Don’t matter, okay? Just, let’s. Let’s not talk about it. It’s fine. I knew you’d do it sooner or later, so, yeah.” Helpless, jerky shrug. “Kinda used to broken promises at this point, y’know. I’ll live.”

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam pleads.

“Stop ‘Dean’ing me!”

So Sam kisses Dean, teeth first, blood and tongue later, and it’s not nice because nothing about anything of them is nice (or okay, or even acceptable). Dean thrashes until Sam gets a hold of his wrists, pins them tight between their chests, chases Dean’s mouth and lets himself get bitten, deserves the pain but can’t help but hiss for it. He wouldn’t pull back if he was about to bleed out.

“Not really what I meant by that,” pants Dean, growling-rough and he has all right to be.

Sam answers with a quick, “Yeah, I know,” before he dives back in, head-first, ready to die.

Dean doesn’t kill him though and no thunderbolt splits Sam in two, either. There’s just them and the morning, Sam kissing Dean and Dean kissing right back, untamed and violent and even though everything is wrong, they still have each other.

A grunt and rough breathing but Dean lets Sam turn him around. Dean quickly turns his head in order to be able to watch over his own shoulder how Sam is yanking his boxers down, to watch how Sam is inhaling and holding that breath and staring, staring at the wet spot he exposed, the one he knows nobody but him put there, made Dean leak all night, all morning, _still_.

“I couldn’t, like, do anything in the, in the bathroom. Nothing came out.”

Sam is still panting, listening, staring. Watches his come seeping down Dean’s thigh in a wide, neat line.

“You broke me,” Dean accuses and sounds like being fucked already, again, growls the words through his teeth like he wanted to hurt Sam with them but at the same time pushes his ass out, his arms like boulders with his hands stemming down onto the counter for leverage, and Sam’s dick is right there behind the thinnest layer of denim and now wet with its own spend from the outside, pooling right through. “So now you’re stuck with damaged goods an’ I swear to god if you don’t take responsibility for that, I-“

Sam shoves in in one urgent push, holds Dean’s surging forward body back with one hand on Dean’s shoulder and one on his lower belly, right where the elastic of his boxers had sat and left an imprint that will fade soon, maybe right under Sam’s fingers, and Dean goes onto the tips of his toes with a helpless shout. Sam keeps him there, tense and strung tight like a bow, just wet enough to produce a squelching noise along with the pounding, and Dean’s back arches and curls in desperate tries to adjust, to let Sam make room for himself. It’s easy to take Dean’s hips with both hands, to lift him from the ground and shove him onto the counter on his forearms and keeping him like this, holding and rutting into him like this, like animals, like it doesn’t matter what’s right or wrong.

Dean is loud, feral; keeps trying to push back against Sam or kick him, unsure which or maybe both, and there’s cursing but never Sam’s name, only _godshitfuckohfuck_ on endless repeat and it must hurt, hurts for Sam himself, too sore from yesterday as if Dean ripped him open and not the other way around, as if Sam left a layer of himself in his brother and will never be able to retrieve it, will forever bleed for it.

Sam speeds up until it’s nothing more but an undisturbed humping, quick slap slap slaps between two bodies and Dean is reduced to almost soundless, “Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthe,” putty in Sam’s hands but shaking, too, and the involuntary hitches in Dean’s voice are the only things that truly reach Sam’s ears as he unloads but never stops moving until he’s empty, until he collapses over Dean’s back and buries his brother underneath him, wraps his arms around him. Again – oh, what he would give to be able to crawl into Dean.

“Shit, get... Hey, I, fuck, lemme breathe, fuck, _Sam_...!”

Sam can barely get a hold of his lungs either. He shakes his head though, murmuring something along the lines of, “No, not yet, jus’ another, jus’ a second, jus’, lemme...”

So Dean gives up struggling, can’t really do nothing but wait for the two hundred pounds on top of him to start moving on their own account. When they do, he is gently heaved down to land on his feet, seems too unstable to support his own body but as soon as his legs are straight and his weight resting on his soles, a rush of come seeps out of him and he flinches, hard. One hand cupped under his ass, Sam has barely ever seen his brother bolting somewhere this quick.

Sam is left in the kitchen, alone, his dick still out and filthy, his mouth speechless and wide for the benefit of more and quicker air.

The house is silent but for Dean’s distant groaning. Then, the sound of a toilet being flushed.

Sam decides that he wants to lay down again, with Dean, Dean being his blanket, nothing but Dean’s warm body and Dean’s beating heart.

Outside, the sun is starting to rise.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean isn’t gone when Sam wakes up that afternoon and Dean isn’t gone the next morning, either. Or the day after that. Sam only reluctantly agrees to an (unfortunately rather urgent) grocery run under the condition that he can come along. Except for a roll of eyes, Dean doesn’t talk back.

Sometimes, Sam catches Dean in the act of looking at Sam as if he has never seen him before. Like something has changed, something remarkable; as if Sam grew a second head. But instead of horror (and Sam wouldn’t think of that emotion as elusive), there’s _softness_ in Dean’s eyes. It’s silly and Sam knows so perfectly well, but some part of him still hopes. Will never stop hoping, probably.

But Dean is staying, and that’s the only thing that matters.

It’s unclear how much time (how many days) have passed and it’s not important, not really, but the sun has been up for several hours again today and Sam lazily watches through the bedroom window how the clouds move across a gray sky. When the distant vibration of a phone breaks the silence, neither of them bothers moving.

It keeps ringing, seemingly endless. It stops just to start all over again a few minutes later.

It occurs to Sam that outside of this house, this bed, there is a world where Dean Winchester has a day job.

Very softly, cheek nestled on top of his brother’s chest, Sam asks, “You wanna get that?” and Dean sounds more asleep than awake when he announces, “Ignore it.”

Sam slides back into silence. The calls surely will stop coming eventually.

The world can wait.

“Fuck,” Dean groans, and the wet way he lets the word hang in the air makes Sam’s just newly spent cock twitch anew. And Dean continues, “You gotta stop _doin’_ that,” as he uselessly tries to scoop Sam’s come off or into his ass, not so sure, not important; makes Sam’s heart pound one way or the other. “Can’t be healthy to shit nothing but this stuff, seriously. ‘S gonna send me to the hospital in the long run.”

“You’ll be okay,” decides Sam with a smile, with a hundred kisses across Dean’s upper back, his shoulders, up his neck. He licks away all sweat on his way and Dean groans disapprovingly but curls his arm around Sam’s neck to roll them over, as always – Dean on his back, Sam on Dean’s chest. Sam can tuck himself in tight and Dean can sprawl. It’s perfect. Well, as perfect as it can get whenever they can’t be locked together.

“Irresponsible,” sighs Dean, sweetly exhausted and so so relaxed, so completely easy with them having sex. Acts as if they just finished one of Dad’s training sessions; nothing to worry about, part of our lives. He hasn’t gotten used to anything about the actual process though, and Sam hopes and prays he never will.

(When Sam slams in right up to the hilt without warning, when he eats Dean’s sore ass until he gets his vary (but sufficient) permission for ‘okay, maybe just _once_ more’, Dean always seizes blind-hot every time like it’s the first time. Like the power of Sam’s feelings for him never fails to surprise him, always go further than he had expected. And they do. Oh, they do.)

Sam closes his eyes in bliss, and hums as he stretches. “Hey, I’m clean, y’know. Jess ‘n me got tested first thing. And then, after her, there was nobody else.” Her memory fills him with warmth now, now that he has something new to live for. Her death finally isn’t the end of his journey anymore. Spontaneous, hormone-high, Sam chuckles. “Not that there was anybody _before_ , but I guess we wanted to do things right.”

“What, seriously?” Sam imagines Dean wrinkling his nose.

“I never wanted anyone else.” _Except for you_ ; but he doesn’t need to say that.

Dean says, “Hm,” and then nobody says anything for a while.

This is their life now. Sleeping, fucking, maybe eating, maybe showering, then falling asleep again. Nobody feels like baring interest in what day of the week or even what time of the day it is. They both have a lot to catch up with and even if it might not be the same desire for Dean that it is for Sam, Dean _does_ dwell in their newfound closeness, their inseparability. Feels like back then, when it was only Dad and them in the entire world.

The fact that there are responsibilities, somewhere out there, that there are people and tasks that need to be taken care of...

If there ever was a connection between the brothers and these things, it has now completely dissolved.

Dean’s chest rumbles softly as he asks in a whisper, maybe in hope Sam is asleep and won’t answer, “You ever pretended she was me?”

But Sam is awake and honest. “Never,” he says. Dean’s stomach expands and deflates under his palm in the calm rhythm of his breath. “When I met her, I knew it would work out with her. It felt... _right_ with her. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I was not. I didn’t have to lie about how I felt.” The weight of Dean’s hand on Sam’s shoulder is just right. The scent of both their sweat helps making the bittersweet taste in Sam’s mouth tolerable. “That was new... And good.”

“You really loved her.”

“I did,” Sam hums.

Dean doesn’t ask: What if you wouldn’t have lost her?

Almost impossible, but Dean quiets down more and more. Could be time is wearing him down, makes him impatient. Dean is not one to live in a dream world. He’s too much like Dad – too practical. Too responsible.

So Dean could say everything, anything – you should get a job, I should get _back_ to my job, we should eat real food again, I should mow the lawn, I should pay my bills – and Sam would accept, would agree, would do whatever Dean tells him to do in order to build what any of those things would lead to: a new life. For the two of them, together.

Usual, boring, everyday quarrels. Discussions about who takes out the trash, who feeds the dogs, who makes a beer run. A normal life with normal problems. _Together_.

After nothing for a long, long while (and Sam actually started putting together the first steps of a mental plan to prepare his long-overdue job hunt), it’s morning when Dean speaks, early and weird lights outside, faintly sizzling rain because autumn is ugly.

Dean looks into his coffee instead of at Sam and says, “Maybe we should go visit Mom.”

It should be quiet but is sincere, so sincere that it seems impossible. Sam studies his brother’s expression intensely across the kitchen table.

“It’s been ages since I’ve been there. Same for you, isn’t it?” Eyes still downcast – rhetorical question. Dean has both hands around his cup and his thumbs rub against each other. “Dad’s there as well now. Put him right next to ‘er. Seemed right.”

“Yeah,” supplies Sam rather numbly.

“Yeah,” mirrors Dean rather emptily.

Sam’s little brother leaves just enough moments of silence prior to picking up speaking for Sam to read right through his façade.

“It’s only, like, six hours from here. Even if we, dunno... Even if we stopped halfway to, whatever, if we’d grab something to eat at that burger place Bobby always used to take us, we’d still be back before midnight. Easily.”

Dean is looking at him now, and the kid can make a shrug a facial expression; it’s unbelievable. Sam snorts, actually, drags one corner of his mouth upwards. His turn to look into his cup of coffee. “What was it called? ‘Beef Delight’? Man, Dad loved that place.”

“No,” Dean interrupts, voice quick and urgent somehow. “No, it’s ‘Country Side’. ‘Beef Delight’s the one twenty-something miles south of Green Bay.”

“Oh.” Sam pretends to be surprised by his mistake. “Oh, yeah, right.” He elbows himself farther across the tabletop. He has a full smile going on by now. “’Beef Delight – You love it, we serve it.’”

The smallest sign of a smile is starting to curl into Dean’s lips.

“They’d put these, uh, Italian sausages on top for like two bucks extra. God.”

“Best burgers though? Like, incomparable? Mill City.”

“Nonono, Ontario.”

“Fuck Ontario, man, you just had a crush on that hippie waitress; their food tasted like _shit_.”

“ _Bull_ shit, you loved the damn cheese fries!”

“Yeah but we’re talking _burgers_ here, Sam, so fuck off with your motherfuckin’ cheese fries, oh my god!”

Sam laughs, and because Sam laughs, Dean laughs, too. Only when it’s already over again, Sam notices that he hasn’t laughed like that in... forever. Especially not together with Dean. That this was the first time in months Dean has laughed.

Sam’s chest is tight and he keeps his smile lingering as his life guard while he watches Dean sinking back into his old self, into the dry alcoholic, the orphan, the always-left-behind boy.

“We, uhm.” Sam blinks a few times to clear his vision. “Yeah, you know what – maybe we should. Go there, I mean. Burgers sound good, too.” He watches Dean nod in unison with him, and that feels good. Sam’s smile widens again. He grips his cup tight. “Wasn’t there... We could stop, maybe, if they still have that wildlife park? We could make it an overnight trip. Some fresh air would do us good. I guess.”

Because he’s probably embarrassed himself how much something small and stupid and boring like a several hours long car ride actually means to him, Dean nods as timidly and composed as he can manage. He would do the same whenever Dad or Sam would make a proposal like that, back when there used to be a mission, a meaning.

We could go watch a movie. We could grab you a slice of pie. We could stay just another week longer before we haul ass again so you can celebrate your birthday with your friends here.

It’s both incredibly sad and incredibly beautiful how it’s still so very easy to make Dean’s world light up.

Dad used to say stuff like, ‘We leave in x minutes,’ and it was annoying and stressing and there always were things left behind and remembered too many miles down the road to go back and pick them up. Over the years, Sam lost a hefty amount of tapes and Dean lost a small but so very painful amount of toys. Dad had it easier – all he had was his journal, his wedding ring, his sons, his car. Everything else was expendable.

Journal tucked close to his body (usually that “hidden” pocket in his leather jacket), ring never leaving his finger (he broke a lot of fingers but never the ringed one; maybe a miracle), sons always in his sight line, car always the thing that moved them around. Impossible to lose.

It’s funny, Sam thinks as he loads his duffle bag (pretty much stuffed with everything he arrived here with in the first place) into the backseat, that after all this time, John’s sons turn out to be just like him. Sam especially.

What matters to Sam now: his wedding ring, his necklace, Dean. Everything else is expendable.

Sam ducks out of the car just in time to watch Dean exiting the house. His bag is about the size of Sam’s and in combination with the leather jacket, the picture twists something in Sam. It hurts, a little, but maybe in a good way. Impossible to say.

After locking the front door, Dean turns straight down the paved driveway, right to his car, to Sam. He looks stupidly handsome. Energetic. A bounce to his step. His eyes are casted down though, maybe avoiding Sam. Or the car. Or the world. Dad didn’t like it when Dean dreamed, but Sam had always fought for it.

There’s no Dad now. Dad’s dead. His own son burnt him, buried him, and yet he is in everything they do. Birds of a feather. The apple and the tree. Can’t teach an old dog a new trick. Sam thinks Dean and him are very old in a very peculiar way. Feels good not to be the only one.

“Hey.” The stress in that voice makes Sam flinch. “She’s got a trunk for a reason, Sam.”

Sam plays with his own fingers curled into his palm while he watches Dean tugging his bag across the backseat to shoulder it, take it to the back of the car. Hears the trunk sighing when it opens. Keeps his eyes on the hood and doesn’t make a move to help.

“Is, uh.” He feels anxiety crawling up his throat, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, shaking him. Only softly. Only to keep him present, to _remind_. Sam has to burst into a small laugh to get the tingling out of himself. “What’d you do with...? Or is it still...?”

The trunk bangs shut with Dean’s, “Sold it.”

The relief in Sam is rushing right down to his knees and turns them into jelly.

“Needed every penny I could get my hands on for the house. Got a good price.”

“All of it? Even... Even your gun? The one with the-“

“Sam, shut the hell up and get into the goddamn car.”

“Okay.”

The doors are squeaking just like back then, heavy but smooth, and Dean probably renewed the seats but they are still vinyl, real cheesy but leather would be less forgiving with blood stains, probably. Still slightly evoking a claustrophobia, shotgun, we gotta move, gotta hurry, let’s get the hell out of here – but Sam turns to his left and there’s Dean. Looking so old. Had to grow up too fast. Always complained about Dad’s music in Sam’s presence to chime in with his big brother but never updated the Impala’s sound system to anything beyond that ratty tape deck.

There are so many memories. Right here. In this one, tiny space. _Years_ were spent here.

Sam croaks, “It’s strange,” and then turns to cough some of the emotions away. “To be here, I mean. To do this.”

“Yeah,” says Dean.

They sit for a moment, hands on thighs, eyes on hands. Sam can only imagine which events Dean’s mind is supplying him with right now. He dwells in his own. Suffers in his own.

Dean’s deep, deep sigh overshadows the fidgeting with the keys, the rumble of the ignition. Sam’s eyes are on Dean’s knuckles (almost white how they grip the steering wheel) and something feels so very wrong about all this and didn’t he _run_ from this kind of thing, didn’t he _hate_ it?

But Dean is here and Dean doesn’t say a single word, brings his foot down gently to make her slide them into the street. Turns on the radio; Dean will need ten stations before he will switch to tapes instead (Foreigner’s “Head Games”). Dean’s first words will be, “Shut up,” because Sam will grab blindly underneath the seat and unearth the damn box with the damn tapes and will give Dean the nasties, most teasing look and ask him, “Seriously?”

In this little world of theirs, nothing has changed. Nothing at all.

So they drive. So they talk about music. So Sam gets a mean shoulder punch for threatening to throw out that one particular Metallica tape because it has always had this super bad quality. So Dean is rough and Dean is snippy, and Sam thinks he has never seen his brother this pleased and excited. Ever. Sam curls a hand over Dean’s on the gear stick and is slapped away instantly with a, “Stop that.” So they drive.

They do stop at Country Side for burgers and fries. Dean gets a malt beer and asks the waitress if he can take a few bottles to go. She says yes, so they’re riding with a six pack between them now. Dean opens them with his ring, while driving. Sam should say something like, “This is irresponsible,” but doesn’t. Just doesn’t. Doesn’t want to, for one, and then Dean probably wouldn’t listen even if he did. Dean’s got this. Feels good, Sam thinks, to be able to lean on someone like that. They could always rely on Dad.

It’s only two PM when they arrive at what turns out to have little to do with the wildlife park they remember from their childhood.

“Goddamn,” hums Dean, and Sam feels the same. They get out of the car and walk down the pebbled path, hands in pockets of their jackets, stunned by the view. Judging by the crammed parking lot (cement and all), the theme park must be hitting it off real good. Dean wants to get tickets so they do that. They used to pay a quarter for kibbles they would give to the deer; now they pay thirty dollars each for free access to numerous rides. These people had to the nerve to keep everything in a strict “nature” theme: vines, artificial trees, green green green, a goddamn petting zoo; _baby goats_. Dean looks tempted for a second there but maybe it’s simply brought out by the sight of a pair of siblings having the time of their life, the younger one squealing in both excitement and horror when the older one pushes them close towards one of the animals. A familiar picture from an unfamiliar perspective.

Cement where they used to learn tracking. Scent of butter and popped corn where there was nothing but both fresh and rotting plants.

Dean says, “I’m gonna be sick,” but when Sam agrees too fed up and quickly, “Me too,” he adds, “I don’t wanna leave yet though.” Desperate, of course. Leaving now would mean they could make it to Lawrence before nightfall.

One corner of Sam’s mouth tucks itself up for his little brother. “Okay.”

Dean looks neither relieved nor disappointed. While Sam composes an approach to talk Dean into a hotdog or something similarly junk-y and appeasing, Dean mutters not too quietly for the family of four a few feet away to hear, “I wonder if they sell beer.”

Surprisingly, they do. The brothers nurse through three each from some sort of gallery overlooking several playgrounds before Dean decides that it’s enough now, this is kinda creepy, let’s head back to the car before they call security on us. At least the children love this place. They don’t know any better. Hell, Dean and him would have loved to go to a place like this when they were at the appropriate age... but then again, their family never would have been able to afford it.

“This is bullshit,” murmurs Sam under his breath, in between hunched shoulders. He is walking right behind Dean who doesn’t look much more amused than him but doesn’t add anything either. Dean likes to lash out at meaningless things but gets quiet the more serious the issue is. They are so very different.

It’s four PM. Lawrence is another three hours away; they could make it.

Sam imagines those two graves, side to side, in the darkness of a sparsely lit, poorly kept cemetery.

“We could, uhm,” he starts.

Instead of reacting or waiting for whatever Sam wants to propose, Dean climbs into the car. Sam follows and never finishes his sentence.

They drive. In silence. For hours. No real destination, maybe everywhere _but_ Lawrence. When a tape finishes on both side A and B, Sam picks another. Dean with his left on the wheel and his right on the gear stick, looks like he was made for sitting like this, in this very car. Sam, slightly hunched over, too-long legs knocking up against the glovebox, right arm propped up against the door, looks like he was made for anything _but_ this. It _feels_ right, though. Like trying on a long forgotten pair of jeans and finding out they still fit.

It's eight PM and they’re nowhere near Lawrence; instead scrape along Nebraska’s border, heading west. Dean opened another malt beer not too long ago. They could use a stop for gas soon if this keeps going. A motel will be needed sooner or later; Sam doesn’t want to be the one to propose looking for one though. What Dean would presume. The disappointment, maybe the disgust about what definitely are not Sam’s top thoughts here but which he can’t deny definitely _are_ existing either.

Dean keeps them on the road until after dark, until it’s either caffeine tablets or a bed; and Dean is the responsible one of them. Sam wishes his heart to beat slower while Dean takes the next best exit with a sigh. A sigh like he doesn’t want this to end yet, but it has to, and maybe this is not even about Sam at all, and maybe that’s good.

“King, please.”

Sam has his shoulders hunched like Dean will hear and punch him from across the parking lot where he’s getting Baby settled, where he sent his brother off to book the room. The employee charges his credit card, hands him a key, is bored through it all, doesn’t look Sam in the eye. And maybe that’s good.

Dean, beautiful tired Dean, is already waiting by the bungalows, in the shadows like he needs to hide, stay anonymous, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders up to his ears because it’s freezing out here (Sam’s palms are moist-hot though).

“There’s a diner but it’s closed. They had any delivery pamphlets lying around?”

“I think I saw something with pizza?”

“I’m down with it, man, anything. I’m _starvin’_.”

“I’ll go get it. Stay here.”

And Dean nods, “Yup,” relaxed and tired and so trusting he doesn’t even consider asking for the key to their room to escape the cold, just because he’s so eager to follow any kind of command. Always was, especially with Dad. His little brother looks even more beat when Sam returns with flimsy paper wrinkled inside the back of his jeans. The promise of food doing its calming deed is another thing that never changed about Dean.

So many years apart, and Dean’s still Sam’s favorite, most annoying, most darling, like he kept all of those tiny little things just for Sam. Lost and added some thing or another, but the core: that’s still the one Sam raised. The one Sam craves, always. Has craved before he knew that there’s a word for someone like him, many words to be exact; before he knew it was bad to feel the way he felt.

“C’mon,” and Dean doesn’t pull away from underneath Sam’s arm that drapes around him, hauls him close, “let’s get you warmed up, kiddo.”

“Not a kid,” grunts Dean, but his elbow misses by a mile and Sam’s ten of those; he can take the sting.

They walk the too few steps until Sam has to peel himself off again, fumbles for the key, heart somewhere in his throat, Dean leaning in close to rest his head against his shoulder, mumbling something about whether he can get extra cheese maybe, and Sam of course replies yes, whatever you want, anything.

Too scared to watch, Sam lets Dean figure the situation out himself while he takes off his jacket, fishes for phone and pamphlet. Back to Dean so he can’t see the bulge in Sam’s jeans, so that Sam doesn’t have to see the hesitation, the realization, the betrayal.

“Dude.”

“C’mon, ‘s jus’ like at home,” Sam mutters, taps in the number without really reading anything. “Meat lovers for you, as always?”

“...Yeah.”

Sam orders for them, hangs up. They said they’ll be here within half an hour. Dean is still in the doorway, closed door in his back, key stuck in there like a dare to turn it, take it.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Sam deserves the glare. “It’s nothing,” he lies.

“Sure, ‘cause your jeans are about to burst ‘cause of ‘nothing’.”

A hand to cover himself; useless, even more so because it’s so dark anyway, Dean shouldn’t be able to see. “I can’t help it. This is...”

He leaves the sentence hanging between them, lets Dean put together the rest. His boy is smart; his eyes dart around, his mouth tightens. His hands don’t ball into fists, not quite, but he pulls off his jacket like it’s burning him.

“Fuck, then, jus’ get it over with before our pizza arrives.”

Half an hour. That’s so much when your Dad is out there checking the traps he laid down for a werewolf, when you got your stupid ass into detention and your baby brother is home alone and maybe dead. Half an hour. That’s so little when the most valuable thing in your world offers itself up, lets you have at it; half an hour.

These rooms are always ratty but it was all they would get. Kids make up stories then, make-believe and pretend. It had helped for a while, until all the good magic was gone early in the nineties where even Dean could draw every protection sigil with his eyes closed.

They were raised here. Not this very room, of course, there were too many to count them, but, aren’t they all the same in the end? Worse than the rooms would be the car, better would be a house (more space, more privacy) or, the best: staying at another hunter’s house (more adults to potentially look after them, working electricity, decent water and heating). But motels are cheap, few to no questions are asked. Things happened in these rooms (this room), good and bad.

They had worlds in here, many; dreams and nightmares. To come back here with Dean now, with how things have changed, it’s...overwhelming.

Getting to listen to Dean’s first jerky tries at masturbation a few feet over in the bed next to his own was an effective motivation to learn to perfectly pretend to be asleep. Or, learning how to distinguish fake from real sleep, so he could watch his brother’s breath without being judged, found out, accused.

It was the best and worst times when Dad was around, when they had two queens for three bodies. Was good and horrible in the winter because Dean despised the cold, would cuddle up with his brother without a care in the world. Was horrifying and blissful in the summer because Dean would sprawl to escape the heat and Sam’s and his own sweat. Sam, with his back to Dad, fingers clutched into sheets or brother-shirt, heart racing, dick pounding, unable to close his eyes because what if he _talked_ in his sleep, if he _touched_ , if?

Dean doesn’t say ‘please’ or ‘yes’ but maybe he will one day, once Sam warms him up some more, once he’s not kept conscious from nothing but his growling stomach and, not far off, Sam’s cock pounding hard enough to jostle him from head to toe. Little _uhn, uhn, uhn_ , weak and impatient, ‘just get it over with’, and Sam doesn’t ask twice, takes what he can get because he’s starving in a way that has nothing to do with his intestines. Not in the classical way, at least.

It smells like piss in here.  
Try to sleep, c’mon.  
Why’s he not here anyway? I thought we were supposed to meet him. Where is he then?  
I told you he got delayed. Tomorrow, promise, so please, Dee, go back to sleep, I’m _begging_ you.  
But I’m hot.  
Take off your shirt then.  
You just wanna stare.  
Yeah, as if, princess. Sleep. Now.  
You’re no fun at all.

Are you awake?  
Mhm.  
I dreamed of you.  
Yeah? What did I do?  
You saved me.  
From what?  
Monster.  
Which kind?  
Dunno. ‘T was big. Wanted to eat me. It said that.  
It talked to you?  
Yeah. But it didn’t, cause you were there.  
Were you scared?  
No. Cause you were there. I knew.

What’re you doin’, Sammy?  
Nothing. Go back to sleep.  
‘Mkay.

I think I’m in love.  
Yeah?  
Yeah.  
What’s her name?  
Nancy.  
She in your class?  
Yeah.  
Cool. I mean, that’s cool.  
It kinda sucks.  
Yeah?  
Yeah. I feel like a complete idiot around her. I run into doors an’ shit.  
Charming.  
Shut up.  
But that’s normal, y’know. I’m sure she thinks you’re cute.  
Yeah?  
Every girl seems to think that. Have you even opened your eyes lately? You’re dangerous, kiddo. A real Casanova.  
Ugh, stop, you sound like Dad.  
Casanova, Casanova, Casanova.  
Sam!

“Keep the change.”

Sam pulls the door shut and locks it single-handedly, naked, his body odor absolutely giving away what happened in this room; made the delivery guy look away and fuck off faster. Dean’s groan is followed by a weak lifting of his head, and he sounds just as destroyed as he looks.

“Pizza,” Sam announces completely unnecessarily, just for the sake of getting back into using more than two or maybe three letters per word. Dean grabs at him as soon as he sat his ass back on the bed but that’s as far as it will go, so Sam handfeeds the first few bites until Dean’s pride gets the better of him.

Dean wolfs down all of his and then half of Sam’s share with gusto. Sam wouldn’t need to eat at all as long as he has Dean.

A dream – impossible to remember if good or bad – startles Sam awake, curled-up big spoon against naked, snoring Dean. One of them pulled the sheets over them but either forgot about it or fell asleep halfway through. The room is warm though, and Dean is warmer still. Sam blinks against the darkness, the blue-ish light from outside the window, the parking lot. Nights are monochrome and easier to understand. Thoughts are clearer at night. No distractions.

He dozes off again without noticing but feels like he didn’t sleep at all when he’s kicked back alive, frowns, groans, hides from daylight and the sound of Dean moving around outside of his reach. Thumping of boots and shifting of leather means Dean is already dressed and that Sam will get a cold shower.

“Let’s fuckin’ _go_ , Sam; my god. I don’t wanna run into the poor maid who has to take care of this mess.”

“This is a fuckin’ highway motel, man. They’ve seen worse, so much worse...”

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to think, you freak. Now get your ass out of bed, pronto.”

Sam doesn’t dare to tease how Dean’s just used two nows in one sentence. Dean has this certain bite that doesn’t leave room for jokes. Got that one from Dad, it seems. So, yeah, Sam gets dressed. They slip out almost soundless, Dean handling the car better than Dad ever had, but Sam doesn’t say that out loud, never would. Fog and dew, damp cold that bites. Sam tastes his own morning breath and shudders. Just like the good ol’ times, right?

They grab coffee and sweet buns at a random gas station along I-70. Sam eyes the hickey he left on Dean’s neck halfway hidden underneath an unusually propped up shirt collar, but it’s not _quite_ invisible, not until Dean slaps his own hand over it and growls at Sam to quit it, eat your breakfast.

There is this edge, this unspoken truth they both are aware of and yet don’t mention. As if it would jump them if they did. It’s inevitable though.

Dean takes a stifled breath when Topeka waves them goodbye on a cheerful sign, and from then on Sam loses time until they’re standing in the cemetery.

He frowns and wonders why he is here. There seems to be no sense to this. Nothing to find here but a reminder of loss, two solid stones with their parents’ names on them, birth dates, death dates. His hand reaches to his left on instinct but he forces it still, cramps it in his pocket, stares at a spot of dirt on someone else’s grave.

“Hey Mom. Hey Dad.”

Dean sounds like he did this before. Probably was here before, just like this, but on his own. Younger. Maybe drunk. Did he sound like this, too? Like he doesn’t want anyone to hear him?

“I brought Sammy this time.”

Nothing more follows. That’s all he could bring himself to, apparently. Sam doesn’t blame him. There’s nothing else to say. Sam could ask for forgiveness for not coming earlier. Could ask for absolution, could say hey, I’m taking care of him again, you guys don’t have to worry, but not even he is as pretentious as that.

If they are watching, they see him. Saw him. Know him. So, basically, it’s this: they either stopped watching years ago or Sam wishes they did.

Like most things recently, Sam stays where he is because of Dean, because he doesn’t move. They stand there for a long time. Wind is whistling through the trees; it’s a nice spot, a nice place to be buried, and that sounds like a strange thing to think, doesn’t it?

Dean heads back to the car without a motivator, without a goodbye. Like he isn’t finished, like he just dropped by; _don’t worry, I’ll be back in a sec_. Like he leaves a part of himself behind there so they won’t forget about him while he’s gone.

It’s either a certain line of a too-familiar song or the sudden crunch of gravel underneath the tires after who knows how many miles of asphalt that reels Sam back into reality. Dean is pulling them out of traffic and the wipers are on full duty. It’s pouring.

The engine shuts down with a soft sound, and then there’s only rain and Billy Squire. Dean shuts the latter down as well, so it’s only rain then.

“Where are we? Why’d you pull over?”

Dean is staring ahead in silence.

Just like at the cemetery, Sam keeps from reaching for Dean. Touching never seemed to console Dean. Not a hugger (in contrast to Dad and Sam himself).

“...Dean? You okay?”

“No,” sincere like why the fuck would Sam even have to ask?

(Rain, rain, rain. Sam doesn’t even hear it anymore.) “...You wanna talk about it?”

A puzzled frown. “About what?”

“About, uh. Whatever’s going on in your head right now?”

Cold, clammy air. The car is so so clean. Nobody would suspect all those chunks and pieces their little family left in here.

Deeper frown. Dean’s eyes are on his hands on the steering wheel as if he wonders who put them there.

“...Dean?”

“Look, Sammy, uh-“ Hasty wipe of hand over mouth, whole-body twist, and if Sam hadn’t been worried before, he is now. “I’m okay, I’m fine, jus- can we like, not fuckin’ talk right now? Can we?”

“Sure. Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.”

A tight sigh, eyes and timid smile towards Sam. “Great.”

Dean climbs him so suddenly that for a long, long second Sam braces himself for a knife, a bullet between his ribs, anything, something, and he is still holding his breath when Dean settles in with a grunt, bumps his head on the roof, shoves his tongue into Sam’s mouth. Nothing about this is meant to be gentle (Dean’s elbows are digging into his shoulders). Sam isn’t sure if it’s got any meaning whatsoever except for maybe being Dean’s clumsy way of reaching out.

Of course Sam is here, of course he follows right up. Dean’s jacket wrinkles so hard between his fingers it won’t be the same after he lets go. Dean gasps in what tastes like relief, and that’s good; and his nails dig deeper into Sam’s scalp, limbs and teeth squeeze tighter.

Sam knows this feeling – bursting, too little space to spare, afraid to spill over.

He holds his brother with enough force to make their joints groan.

Distant rush of rain, still, undying; labored breath of two, rough trip of jeans on jeans, nails going for blood and teeth actually succeeding.

Sam’s fingers barely get a hold of the door handle.

“No, don-“

“Backseat,” bark, growl, monster, Dad.

Sam gets them outside whilst still clawing and kissing. It takes no more than these three or maybe four seconds outside of the car to get soaked down to the skin. Sam’s foot slips in the muddy grass but Dean – already safe on the seats – pulls him in, boots digging into Sam’s ass and Sam doesn’t notice (let alone care) that his legs remain sticking out into the rain. It’s not like they’d get the door closed with both of them in the back anyway.

While Dean tugs at Sam’s face, Sam does the same to their clothes; shirts out of jeans, belt buckles. Dean is snarling like a dog.

“Do it already, fuck, c’ _mon_!”

Sam’s, “The lube’s in my duffle,” has Dean shouting his frustration. In the end, Sam could have gotten to the trunk and back ten times in what it takes to get away from Dean’s death-grip. Once Sam’s back, Dean reels him inside, pushes and clambers until it’s Sam who’s on his back. No space for breath under the press of Dean’s hands on Sam’s chest.

Fresh rain drips from Dean’s hair and Sam blinks, is aware of the front of his shoes and shins seeping heavy within moments. Dean is straddling Sam, whips Sam’s dick out and bites Sam’s cheek like he’s going for broken-in skin. Sam yelps when he _does_ , bucks up to shove Dean off and gets kneed in the groin, whimpers because Dean sighs through his breath like ‘yes’, like ‘finally’, and Sam’s hands are still on Dean’s thighs to hold on. Dean bumps his head again as he rears up on his knees so he can shove his pants down just below his ass.

Nothing but rain and Sam’s choked off, “Oh, _oh_ ,” when there’s barely a flick of a handful of lube prior to Dean forcing him inside; cruel grip on the base and gritted teeth but it _works_. Barely a give there, so cramped, so tense, and Dean gasps so unprepared and deeply when Sam’s hips twitch up just when he lets go of his cock to put his hand back on Sam’s chest for leverage. He starts moving instantly, rocks his hips backwards and down to sink Sam further in, hisses, eyes squeezed hard enough to screw up his entire face. His nostrils are flaring and Sam wants to cry, “Dean,” but nothing wants to come out, no space left, no air. He tugs at the collar of Dean’s flannel, wants and needs him closer, now, wants to kiss. All he gets to taste is copper from the warm drip in the corner of his own mouth.

He gets no reaction. Dean is shut off, holds his breath and trembles with it. Once it rushes out it’s alongside a moan, wet and all-wrong, and Sam feels like Dean’s ass creates enough suction to pull his balls up into his dick with how he pushes off of it like that. Eyes do what they want, roll back into Sam’s skull, hard, at the drop down. No time to adjust, to catch a breath. Dean works them raw.

Dean’s belt and jeans bite at Sam’s cock but it’s futile to get them out of the way, they won’t _stay_ , and Sam surrenders not too long into the hassle. He shoves his hands up Dean’s sides instead, feels muscles work here, gets a whimper as if this tenderness is _hurting_ Dean.

“Baby-”

“Don’t.”

A shift of weight and Sam’s hips suddenly have more of a chance to cant up. Dean grunts, adjust his knees, tips his hips differently.

Dean’s face _melts_ with the following thrusts. Like something is uncurling. His insides flutter too, untuck around Sam and let him punch so much deeper.

“Oh my _god_.”

Dean’s head tips back. His hands tighten to fists. The left one drags the amulet over Sam’s skin in its wake, leaves a trail of red-hot without either of them noticing.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-“

(They are rocking the car into the mud, must be; they might not get away, might _die_ here.)

Dean unravels on top of Sam, sobs like they’re alone in this world. Sam frantically tries to fit his hand behind the pulled-taut stretch of jeans between Dean’s legs only to find it already-soaked.

Sam’s heart double-beats; he can’t speak.

“Don’t stop don’t stop don’t fuckin’ STOP!”

Even after Sam complies, Dean keeps shouting and swearing at him, and Sam, in just as much a frenzy halfway breaks his back to slam up into the spasming clutch that is Dean’s body. One hand wrapped around Dean’s still (constantly, oh _god_ ) dribbling cock; up on one elbow, wide eyes up at his little brother who just grabs his shirt harder as if he wants Sam closer too. Sam pushes himself off the seats to latch onto Dean’s mouth, has one hand fanned wide on little-brother-back and tips them over like that. Again, Dean’s on his back, legs hiked up Baby-ceiling-high. Sam stems one muddy boot into the upholstery and one into the floor. Dean will kill him for it later, but now he kisses Sam in the world’s most unintended encouragement.

Impatient sounds from Dean beg of Sam to finally let go of his oversensitive dick. Sam _does_ pull back his hand, but not without bringing it to his mouth right away. Dean presses his head down and away then with both hands and full force (and full disgust), makes Sam grunt and fold in half and bite his own fingers, but that’s okay, a fair price. Sam comes on the taste of copper and salt, the heaving breath underneath-above him.

Whips of wind let the rain get to them both. Body heat, sweat and fresh air mingle, set into their clothes. (Dean put on a clean set after yesterday – does he have any left? Would he accept something from Sam, maybe jeans, his ones are so soiled now? They’d fit, wouldn’t they?) Clean, clean, like the car itself. (Wasn’t there mud? Wasn’t there blood?)

Dean’s leg slips off Sam’s shoulder and even though he hisses he doesn’t move either. His hands go from pushing Sam’s head to holding it to now slipping off completely. The rustling of clothes tells Sam Dean’s wiping his face. Then, silence again.

Closeness makes up for a certain amount of discomfort, but even Sam has his limits. An eventual try to dislodge himself from his brother earns him a, “No, stay,” like he’s a dog or something. But of course; of course he stays.

Stickiness, doubled heartbeat, damp-in-too-many-ways clothes. Sam sighs and shifts his hip so his wilted lust-confession stays safe and Dean-warm.

God. He wants to sleep here. Exactly like this.

“...Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“...Let’s not go home.”

“Okay.” A pressed kiss to Dean’s neck; lopsided, blissed smile. “What about the motel? There’s still some savings left. We can...”

“No. I mean, like...” Quiet. “...Not _ever_.” More quiet. “...Y’know?”

Sam blinks against the seats. He takes a breath, frowns. Opens his mouth to object, to ask something.

“I’ve thought about it for a while now.”

Insides get car-crashed. Sam feels light-headed, whispers, “But what about the house?” like it could hear them conspire like teenagers. His heart flutters in pain.

“I hate it.” Blunt. Shockingly un-shocked about what he’s saying. “Always did. All of it.”

“But weren’t you... You seemed...” (Happy?)

“Did it for Dad,” chokes Dean, and Sam can’t see his brother’s face but hears his heart, the lump in his throat scratching on his Adam’s apple. “Thought it’s what I wanted too at first, but it never ended up feeling right. Like I was lying, to everyone, actually. About everything. Was lying to you, too.”

“That’s okay.”

“Isn’t. I don’t wanna keep doin’ that.”

Frown, honestly joking when Sam dares, “And instead _what_? Jus’, drive around? Like we used to? _Hunting_?”

Surprisingly steady comes Dean’s, “Yeah.”

Sam’s mind takes a step back. Takes a breath. Lets Sam open his eyes and mouth.

“You can come with.“

Sam’s mouth opens wider.

“I mean. If you want.” Little-boy-quiet, ‘we can share my lunch if you like’-like, ‘we can hold hands if you’re scared’-like.

No. Yes. Of course. Never.

(There are fucking tears in Sam’s eyes even before Dean starts tucking his hair behind his ear; shit.)

“...Did you bring the photos?”

Almost-Jess whisper, too fucking soft, and it’s scary, all of this is. “‘F course.”

Sam closes his eyes and counts backwards from ten. Just like he used to.

Even though they both know the answer (was there even a question?), Sam has to say it out loud. Like shooting star wishes in reverse; _gotta keep it a secret, Dee, or it won’t come true._

(Sam will think back to here many years from now, will remember how he would have done anything Dean would have asked of him. Will still do it in a heartbeat, then. No hesitation, no distance.)

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Y’don’t have to,” whispers Dean, and Sam vows, “I want to,” and from this moment makes it his truth.

The shower clears out to a drizzle. Sam’s faithful shirt wipes away all the stains as if this is a crime scene (which it is, in a way). Leave no traces. There’s no reason to shiver with the loss of that one layer though – a strange, dull warmth sits in Sam now, shoves him awake and upright, sends him searching for Dean’s eyes, his approval, something. Like: what now?

Almost feels like excitement.

Dean is standing outside (‘get out of my face’) and watches the horizon like it holds any answers for him. Maybe it does. Who knows. Ten minutes ago, Sam still thought they’d be bickering about potatoes or pasta for dinner tomorrow.

“I mean, if you really wanna do this,” and Sam puts extra-sass in there just to get more attention, leans out of the car halfway, soiled shirt still in his hands like a precious souvenir (which it is, in a way), “we should gear up first thing.”

(After holing up in a motel room for a week or two, just the two of them; take-out dinner and ranky sheets and edging on dehydration as much as on serenity.)

Dean’s hands are stemmed into his waist. So fucking tiny; even more so against the broad endlessness of his upper back. Unyielding but for a careless shrug, a tip of hips when he rearranges the way he holds his weight.

“Might be that I’m ahead of your game there, brother.”

Sam loses his train of X-rated thoughts and suddenly it’s just Dean, this grown man, equal to Sam and maybe even meaner. So much like Dad.

Sam smiles.

“You lied about the trunk.”

“I _so_ fuckin’ lied about the trunk.”

Dean turns just so Sam can see what one day might grow into a full-on grin. So much like the old days. Maybe there are places in him that Sam’s darkness can and will never reach, and Sam prays this is one of them.

Vanishing is easiest when you have nothing to leave behind.

Stanford obviously was the hardest choice Sam ever had to execute. How easy it was in comparison to ditch the apartment with remnants of Jess’ laughter and forgotten bobby pins all over.

And this here? This is no sacrifice at all. Sam _gains_ here. He wins.

Fuck-sprawled and sated boneless, it’s a treat to feel scratchy bedsheets, to watch little brother work over all the guns Sam still could identify by touch alone. They’re sharing a bottle of whiskey back and forth but now it’s settled on the floor next to Dean. There’s no hurry. They’re free now.

Lopsided smile upside-down, head dangling from the bed. Shamelessly adoring his too-big, too-new, too-expensive shirt on Dean who doesn’t appreciate it; uses the sleeve to wipe away gun oil where it dripped on his naked thigh.

“Y’know you could do all this without me, right?”

Click of tongue. Not even eye-contact, but God knows they don’t need that.

Absent smile. Maybe not even for Sam, but God knows he doesn’t mind.

“Yeah, well,” Dean huffs, “I don’t want to.”

Dean is the moment before unlocking a door, before shooting a gun, before jumping a ledge. Sam is weight and Sam is wrong. Sam is claws and teeth and violence, but god, Sam is love.

Together, they are ruinous.

(Are you scared? – No. – Then pull the trigger when I say. Three... two...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a long, long journey. Thank you for sticking with this story to the end. Your comments and discussions were most delicious. I blow kisses all around for this wonderful experience. Cheerio!


End file.
